RFID Tag Standard AS5678: Easy to Remember, Hard to Meet
Posted by Luke Waidmann on Wed, Sep 21, 2011
Those of you readers familiar with ODIN will know about our RFID Benchmark Series ™ analyzing all aspects of the RFID industry. We have tested tags, readers and software systems from all areas of the RFID Industry. One of my jobs is to lead that testing effort.
I recently led testing on the newest addition to the series, looking at the AS5678 Tags. For discussion purposes I’ve broken the testing into two parts; Part 1 studies the performance characteristics of High Memory (>4kB) Tags while Part 2 compares only Low Memory (<512b) Tags.
I really like the AS5678 standard. With its sequential numbering, it is very easy to remember and type – just slide your finger along the number keys like a C scale on a piano. While it is easy to remember, it is exceedingly hard to meet. This standard was designed to certify tags for use in the Airline Industry on parts meant for installation on planes – but is also a perfect robustness indicator for the industrial manufacturing and transportation industries.
Airplanes experience some of the sharpest environmental changes in unpressurized cargo areas. The US Standard Atmosphere 1976 says that a plane experiences temperature and pressure variations of 15 OC and 101 kPa to -50 OC and 20.65 kPa on every take off (and the inverse on each landing). In reality, the changes can be much more drastic. Planes flying during summer could easily change from 40 OC to -50 OC. The tags must be certified to pass drop and impact tests, and have an expected lifetime that exceeds the life of the plane.
These requirements mean the AS5678 certification is a great indicator for all tough industrial industries. Gas pipes and shipping containers are routinely shipped all over the world and can take hours to track. The tags discussed in Part 1 have a minimum of 4 kiloBytes of memory – enough to store relevant information about the part, such as final destination directly on the tag. This means the tags can be scanned and information gained about the part from anywhere in the globe – no network or database connection required just a hand-held reader.
In Part 1 we found that the tags had consistent performance across multiple manufacturers. Offerings from Xerafy and Marubeni were consistently high performers in read and write range testing, while options from RCD, RFID TagSource and MAINtag provide very small footprints or easy attachment methods to parts. Like many things in RFID there are tradeoffs based on your particular use of the technology. Drop us a line at ODIN if you would ike to learn more or need some help getting it right the first time. That's what we do. info@ODINRFID.com