Common Questions About RAIN RFID
Listen as Impinj engineers address common questions and misconceptions about RAIN RFID in a clear, easy-to-understand format. Watch to learn more.
Video transcript:
Summer Bourn, Learning Enablement Manager: Hello and welcome to Impinj's RAIN RFID education series — a training series where we bring in Impinj in-house experts to break down complex RAIN RFID topics.
I'm Summer. I manage training programs here at Impinj. And while I am not a RAIN RFID expert, I do know great folks at Impinj who are. So, with me today is Nat Hillary, solutions engineer, and Sarah Kuzy, product applications engineer. And together, they have expertise spanning product development to solution deployment.
And today they're here to answer some of the most common questions that people have about RAIN RFID. So, let's get to it.
Nat, first question for you and it's an easy one. What is RAIN RFID?
Nat Hillary, Solutions Engineer: That's easy for you to say.
Well my favorite way of describing RAIN RFID is to describe a system, a RAIN RFID system.
So, a RAIN RFID system consists of a label, what we call a tag, a reader, and an antenna. The label, the tag, contains the same kind of information that you get in a barcode, a UPC, for instance. But it communicates wirelessly. So you don't need a line of sight in order to be able to read the label. So, the reader will provide a radio signal to the antenna that then broadcasts that signal to the tags.
That signal actually provides the tags enough energy to power up, at which point they're able to reflect some of that signal back to the antenna and then to the reader that then reads that tag information. So this way, you can actually read the tags without needing to go through and find each one individually so you can read the barcode.
One of the things I like about RAIN RFID is the kind of systems that you can develop using RAIN RFID. IoT systems, for instance, leverage the kind of information that RAIN RFID provides, whereby you can identify an item and a location and, of course, a time.
So tying the RAIN RFID reads in that way, you can associate a tag with a dock door, with the door entrance (door to a store), or with going from a stockroom to the front of store, for instance. By doing that – by being able to associate a tag with a specific time and location – you then have the ability to track through the supply chain. In enterprise resource planning software, you can keep track of where everything is in the supply chain as individual items.
Summer Bourn: So, I know that many people interact with RFID on a daily basis without even necessarily realizing it. One common area that I know that RFID is, is in cell phones.
Sarah, I'm curious if you could explain how RFID works in cell phones, how people may interact with that.
Sarah Kuzy, Product Applications Engineer: Sure.
So, you are correct that there is a version of RFID in cell phones. So, to make a distinction, what Nat just described was RAIN RFID, which is very high distance, high volume. What you would find in your cell phones is called “NFC,” or near field communications.
This is a separate type of RFID where you must have, as the name suggests, a very near field, have the reader and tag – or the antenna and the tag – quite close together for that communication to occur.
Summer Bourn: You both have made mention of RAIN RFID tags, and I'm curious — what type of information is contained in a tag and, Nat, I'll hand it over to you.
Nat Hillary: RAIN RFID tags contain several pieces of information. There are several different memory regions within the tag. One piece that you cannot change is a tag identifier, which uniquely identifies each tag worldwide.
The next piece of memory is what we call the electronic product code or EPC. And that's where the item-specific data is stored, such as a UPC.
There is an optional third memory section called user memory that's used for very specific use cases, but it's not particularly common.
The EPC is used in a variety of different ways. Retail provides a good example of how it's used. In retail, within the EPC memory region, they will store a UPC (a universal product code) and a serial number. What that allows you to do is uniquely identify a pair of gray pants, a blue sweater. So they're not just “a” pair of gray pants or a blue sweater, but a specific pair of gray pants or a blue sweater.
Together, the UPC and the serial number form what's called a serialized global trade identification number that allows you to identify theitems not just as individuals but globally as well.
Summer Bourn: So, the information that our RAIN RFID system uses from a tag is really just specific for that use case, for that application. And that might mean something like where the item is or how many items are available or even how those items move.
I'm curious. I've heard this this term called “always on” RAIN RFID infrastructure. And, Sarah, I'll ask you to explain what that term means. And, also, does that mean I'm always being tracked or that item's always being tracked? Really curious here.
Sarah Kuzy: Great question, Summer. So “always on” RAIN RFID refers to the reader is constantly broadcasting that signal that's required to power on tags, but a RAIN RFID reader can only communicate with RAIN RFID tags. And similarly, it can only track items that have been tagged with a RAIN RFID inlay.
So for example, a common application is a warehouse enabled with a RAIN RFID dock door. That dock door has that RF signal present, waiting for tags to come into field of view so that it can read them and record the time stamp. And that would be useful for the application to know what the item is and exactly when it comes through that door. That requires the reader to be constantly searching for those tags.
But “always on” RAIN RFID cannot track anything that is not enabled with a RAIN RFID tag, in this example, people.
Summer Bourn: So, I have an example that I'd like you to kind of help me understand. So, say in retail, I've purchased something, (and) I'm walking around in the mall with my purchased items that have tags on them...can someone with any sort of mobile reading device nearby, are they able to read the items that I've purchased and know what I bought? Nat, can you explain?
Nat Hillary: That's a very good question. I know a lot of people are worried about that whole idea because it implies some kind of privacy issue.
RAIN RFID is a technology that's used to read data at a distance. But a RAIN RFID tag conforms to a very specific protocol, and there's a specific set of commands within that protocol that define how you talk with those tags. Included in that protocol are a number of commands that you can use to control whether the tag responds or not. So you can actually “kill” the tag.
So two things. First of all, having a reader to read the tags in the mall? That’s not very likely to happen. But a lot of retailers will actually kill that tag as well. So even when it's out in the wild, you can't read it.
The protocol defines a specific “kill” command which totally disables a tag – which is not particularly good for when you're returning the items. It's great for privacy when you bought the item, but when you return the item, how do you know as a retailer that that's actually an item...that the retailer has actually sold to you as an individual.
So, Impinj has introduced a “protected” mode (Impinj Protected Mode), and what that allows the tags to do is enter the same kind of state whereby the tag is essentially unresponsive until you provide a very specific command and access password, which causes the tag to come back to life and respond again. So you, as a retailer, can then verify that you actually have the right item, it's from your store, et cetera, et cetera.
So the whole privacy issue — which is what we're talking about here — is something that RAIN RFID, from its inception, has been aware of and built in a number of protective measures, included as part of the basic protocol to make sure the privacy can be protected.
Summer Bourn: Sarah, I have an example for you.
So, kind of a similar situation. I've purchased something; it has a RAIN RFID tag. Can payment information be captured when using an RFID-enabled card?
Sarah Kuzy: When checking out using an RFID-enabled card, you're using NFC, or the near field communication that I mentioned earlier. And that, as the name suggests, requires you to be within just a couple of centimeters of an NFC receiver.
Now, if somebody were sitting at a distance from you with some sort of receiver trying to listen to this information, they would not be able to do that.
NFC requires both the close distance and also it follows a very closely regulated encryption that protects your information during that transaction.
If the person were sitting at a distance with a RAIN RFID receiver of some sort, they would not be able to read that information because RAIN RFID and NFC RFID are two totally separate communication protocols, and they're unable to interact with each other. A RAIN reader cannot read an NFC chip from your card, and an NFC receiver would not be able to read a RAIN tag that you waved over it.
Nat Hillary: So there need to be two devices — an NFC device and an RFID reader — in order to complete that transaction?
Sarah Kuzy: In the checkout scenario we've been discussing? Yes.
Summer Bourn: So we've talked about the different ways – some examples – of how people might interact with RFID on a daily basis. Nat, I'm curious if you can explain how RAIN RFID can benefit people.
Nat Hillary: Absolutely. I get to talk about the fun stuff. So, there are a couple of different use cases that I like to describe for how RAIN RFID is used, how beneficial it is, but also how invisible it can be as a technology.
The first example is a company called Topgolf. They use RAIN RFID as an integral part of their technology.
Topgolf is a golf game whereby you hit the balls towards a target and you get scored based on the targets that you hit, so you can play against your friends to see who gets the most points.
Each of the golf balls has a RAIN RFID tag within it. So, as a player, you come up, a golf ball is presented to you, and it's associated with you as a player. You hit the ball out to the targets. There's a RAIN RFID reader at the targets. It sees the ball associated with a given target, a different score value, and then reports that back to that specific player. So, Topgolf uses RAIN RFID. It’s very hard to know that it's even there.
Another example is marathons. The New York marathon, the Boston City marathon — they use RFID to track the runners.
Each runner has an RFID tag on their bib and another one on their shoe. So, using that mechanism or system, the marathon (organizers) can track when each runner passes the start line, when each runner passes the stop line. But they can also monitor at waypoints on the way, what the progress of each runner is. That enables them to publish on their websites the progress of each runner. So you can go on to the website and see what the progress of each runner is.
The extended benefit of that is should any runner have trouble on the way, they always know where that runner was last seen so they can get to them as quickly as possible.
Summer Bourn: So, a slightly different take on that question. Sarah, could you explain how RAIN RFID might benefit people in the workplace? I know there's a variety of applications where RAIN RFID makes sense, but specifically some examples within the workplace I think would be helpful.
Sarah Kuzy: Sure. One of the great benefits we've seen for RAIN RFID is visibility throughout the supply chain. We talk about tagging individual items. You know specifically what the item is and where it is and when it transitioned from point to point throughout the supply chain.
Another great benefit that we've seen or another use that shows great benefit of RFID is in the retail space. It improves efficiency when cycle counting.
An employee would have previously needed to scan each individual item to be able to confirm what was in the store and where it was and how many they had of each item. Where now they can use an RFID reader to scan a whole rack at once, and this really helps to increase confidence in an accurate stock count. In a retail space that is able to have this very high confidence, they're also able to offer every item confidently online for sale – something that we've seen a lot of retailers have been moving towards, having their stock that's available on the floor also available for sale online, and this really helps to sell down to the last item with high confidence.
So, just all of these little benefits that help improve efficiency and confidence in what you have and where it is benefit the workplace.
Summer Bourn: Nat, I have an important question that I'd like us to end on and that is: Does RAIN RFID mean an end to personal privacy?
Nat Hillary: No. It does not mean an end to privacy. There are a number of different aspects to this.
So, information. Let's talk about the information first. The data that's contained in a RAIN RFID tag is specific to the item that has been tagged. Nothing else. So there's no personally identifiable information as we've already spoken about. So there's nothing to associate that item with an individual. So there's clear separation there.
But the RAIN RFID protocol, as we've spoken about, from its inception, has included a number of methods to help enforce privacy. The kill command that we've spoken about, the protected mode that I described earlier.
Some countries have taken the privacy very seriously. In fact, in Europe, if you buy an item that has an RFID tag on it, the tag has to be disabled before you leave the store. So the RAIN RFID protocol has – built into it – mechanisms to enable companies to enforce privacy in that way.
So, because there's separation between the item information and the individual, there's no risk in privacy. In fact, I would actually go so far as to say that there's more privacy risks associated with using social media than there is with buying an RFID tagged item.
Summer Bourn: Well, Nat, Sarah, thank you so much for being here with us today. I really appreciate you bringing your expertise to address some of the most common questions that we hear about RAIN RFID.
I personally feel like I've learned a lot, so thank you again for sharing your expertise with me. I feel like you made RAIN RFID feel a little bit less magical and a little more tangible.
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Wednesday, April 24, 2024
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