The new RFID system family, for 860 to 956 megahertz frequencies (the UHF range), will consist of stationary and handheld reader designs with corresponding tags for various environmental conditions. Siemens said that the new range is scheduled to be ready for mid-2005.
The RFID systems' functionality corresponds to EPC Global and ISO/IEC 18000-6 standards. The readers will communicate via TCP/IP with PC or SIMATIC controllers as servers. The readers will allow for remote engineering, according to customer requirements, via the Internet and will also perform diagnostics using a remote control unit.
Three Siemens businesses have combined their product, information technology and services expertise as part of this product expansion.
Siemens Automation & Drives (operating as Siemens Energy & Automation in the United States), Siemens Logistics and Assembly Systems, and Siemens Business Services, are working together to provide industrial customers with comprehensive RFID enabled solutions for supply chain improvement.
The activities covered, said Siemens, range from manufacturing to warehousing to complete end-to-end customer solutions.
This is a significant undertaking from Siemens, and underlines the fact that major corporations are putting their weight behind a technology that to date has mostly been pushed forward by smaller companies.
Only this week, labelling giant Avery Dennison announced that it would form a new business unit to manufacture and sell low-cost radiofrequency identification (RFID) inlays and tags. The firm's chief executive, Philip Neal, said that RFID is expected to be 'the company's largest long-term health opportunity'.
This seems to be the opinion of Siemens as well.
"For more than 20 years Siemens has supplied RFID technology and delivered significant productivity to key industries, including Automotive production," said Alex Stuebler, business manager of factory automation sensors at Siemens Energy & Automation.
"We have more than a quarter of a million read/write devices installed worldwide. Our RFID portfolio, marketed under the Moby name, consists of a variety of systems for numerous applications in production, logistics and distribution."
Commercial release of the UHF tags is expected to coincide with the availability of EPC Gen2 tags in the middle of 2005 following the pilot customer phase currently underway.
"UHF technology allows increased distances between readers and tags at relatively low costs," said Stuebler. "We anticipate that the technology will grow in popularity among industrial customers as well as retail customers and their suppliers, because of improving standards and lower tag prices."
Siemens Energy & Automation is a division of Siemens, a leading global electronics and engineering company with reported worldwide sales of $80.5 billion in fiscal 2003.
Siemens has developed and deployed RFID technology in more than a dozen large logistics projects and since July, 2004, has also participated in the Future Store Initiative of the Metro Group, which includes IBM, Intel and SAP, and others as members. The Metro Group tests new technologies and ideas in practical applications in order to develop RFID standards for commercial use.
In the US, Siemens has also been working on standards development as a member of the EPC Global Panel.
RFID technology is based on a relatively simple concept. It consists of two elements that communicate through radio transmission - a tag and a reader. The tag contains a small chip and an antenna and can be placed on any object. The information on the tag, such as an identification number, can be transmitted to an RFID reader over a distance of a few metres.