RFID Systems, how do they work, how do you make them, etc. (What’s the best resource to use to learn more?)
In: Technology
RFID or Radio Frequency Identification system uses a radio signal from the tag to the receiver to transfer a code which can be looked up on a database, or the tag itself may contain detailed information which can be read by the scanner. – https://youtu.be/G19cVJfy24A
An RFID tag is basically a storage device, it’s a chip that can only hold a small amount of data, like in the order of 2 kilobytes. But the advantage of it is, it can be read wirelessly, and it’s also powered wirelessly by the RFID reader (passive tag), though you can get powered ones that can transmit further if needed (active tag) but they obviously require a power source. They can also be reprogrammed, and some standards allow for things like encryption.
Because of the small storage space, generally they’re only storing data like unique identifiers or URLs, much like a barcode or QR code. Their use case is also pretty much the same, they can be used to keep track of stock in a warehouse, movement of freight etc. In commercial usage, the RFID reader will usually be connected to an enterprise management system of some kind and take action based on the system’s requirements and business rules. For personal usage, one might use it for asset management, or home automation, though consumers would usually use NFC, a subset standard of RFID. That’s the general idea, at this point you’d need to ask about a specific RFID system implementation to know more about how they work. Of course the exact usage is limited to your imagination. Nintendo’s Amiibo and other toys-to-life products are one example.
How do you make them, well it depends what you want to do. But the basic steps are:
1. Buy a bunch of RFID stickers/tags/chips
2. Affix them to the stuff you want to keep track of
3. Buy an RFID scanner (or use your NFC-capable smartphone) that can read and write tags
4. Download or develop software that does stuff with the scanned data
You can find info about how RFID/NFC work just by googling, but the technical detail isn’t really important, what you need to know first is, what are your requirements, what do you want to use RFID for? And once you’ve worked that out, search online for existing apps/software for that use case, or get to work developing your own. You probably don’t want to buy the actual tags until you’ve worked out the rest of the solution first, because the solution might require a particular type of RFID tag.
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