How well do You Know RFID

The following quiz on RFID from SCDigest includes a few more technical questions as well as more on more general topics related to the RFID industry and its development.

Some easy, some harder - test your knowledge! Answers at the bottom of the page.

1. In what year was the first US patent issued for what could realistically be called an RFID system?

2. The current EPCglobal organization, part of GS1, was formed by taking over the work of what pioneering RFID organization?

3. The minimum "write" speed (say on a production line) for a so-called EPC Gen2 tags is how many tags per second.

4. The primary difference of an "active" tag versus so-called "passive" tags (such as the EPC) is the including of what tag component?

5. Right around the time of the original Walmart RFID "mandate," what other major US organization also issued a set of similar RFID compliance requirements?

6. Intermec, an RFID system leader, moved aggressively into RFID in the early 1990s (building on its bar code and wireless system focus) when it bought a series of patents from what technology giant?

7. What 2005 book gained prominence and served as a catalyst for concerns about RFID and privacy rights - to the point where it was said Wal-Mart would not come to any even where one of the authors was also giving a presentation?

8. The EPC Gen 2 standard included what technical change meant to mitigate concerns about privacy?

9. By most accounts, what company was the first in the US to implement an RFID-based tracking system in a warehouse?

10. Which type of materials should not pose any problem for RFID tag reading?

A.         Foil lined packages

B.         Non-conductive plastic

C.         Water

D.         Metal

E.         Carbon-based plastic

11. What is the technical term for the process by which a passive tag antenna can echo back a signal using the energy from a reader interrogation?

12.  What is the term for an RFID antenna and data chip mounted on a basic substrate (typically a plastic material) that can be embedded in a label construction, corrugate packaging material, etc?

Answers:

1. 1973, to Mario Cardullo for invention of a passive transponder with memory. The first patent to actually include the term RFID was granted to Charles Walton in 1983.

2. The Auto ID Center at MIT

3. 5 - though a target rate of 30 is established with the Gen2 standard

4. A battery

5. The US Department of Defense

6. IBM, which sold the business as it was managing its own financial troubles at the time

7. Spy Chips, by Katherine Albrecht (a former Harvard professor) and Liz McIntyre.

8. A "kill" feature that could not be reverse once activated. In other words, a store, for example, could issue a "kill" instruction to a tag once the consumer has made a purchase, so that the tag was un-readable from that point on.

9. International Paper, at a DC in Texarkana, TX.

10. B - Non-conductive plastic

11. Backscatter

12. Inlay

Source: http://www.scdigest.com/