Cognio and its RF Interference Detection Product

Filed in archive Wireless on March 21, 2006

Sponsored Post

Cognio is one of our advertisers here at the RFID Weblog. I'd like to thank them for their support. But more than just mentioning an advertiser, I think Cognio offers a product which is likely to become increasingly necessary given all the wireless networks proliferating in business operations these days, including RFID networks.

The product is called Spectrum Expert for RFID. As I understand it, the product can detect RF interference and actually tell you which device is causing the interference:

"The unlicensed bands are becoming increasingly congested as more devices, and types of devices, are now available and in use. Wireless networks are also proliferating at a staggering rate, with the leading networks leveraging the unlicensed band for RFID and WiFi. This makes managing these networks and devices challenging for wireless IT managers as they operate in the most difficult spectrum to control - the unlicensed spectrum, where these networks must compete for resources with other devices that use these frequencies.

To combat the growing problem, network professionals need tools that can quickly troubleshoot the physical layer. For RFID networks, the need is to be able to determine whether there are interfering devices and to test to verify the power transmitting from RFID readers as either can significantly undermine network availability and reliability. For WiFi, the problem is to ensure that connectivity problems are not being caused by physical layer problems. In both cases, Spectrum Expert solves these problems by enabling wireless IT manager to identify and locate interfering devices quickly before they can bring down or impact the network."