Agility: Foam based RFID tags can work with liquids and metals

Filed in archive Tags and Readers on July 2, 2008

One of the problems generally faced with RFID tags is that they are not able to perform near liquids or metal as they tend to interfere with RF waves. Keeping in mind these limitations ITTC at university of kansas has developed Agility which is a passive UHF tag aimed at overcoming the problems faced when using them near the materials stated above.

It is a foam attached tag (FAT) which is around 2/16 inches thick. It works perfectly near liquids, metals and free spaces and can be read from a distance of 15 to 20 feet. Since foam comes cheap it would be easier to produce Agility on a mass scale and is expected to bring down the cost per tag. This would be great for the RFID industry as it would not make the technology cheaper but also deal with the performance issues related to liquids and metals.