Search for the missing gets shorter with RFID

Filed in archive Implementation on June 7, 2007

It is an anxious wait for people whose loved ones go missing until they are united again. Those who are lucky enough may not have to wait much longer for their return while for others the wait may be endless. The latter may not happen again as now North American agencies and volunteer groups entrusted with searching the lost are using a combination of RFID enabled wristbands and readers for the purpose which is excepted to bring down the search time to thirty minutes or even less. These wristbands and readers operate within VHF range which enables a read range of around a mile on the ground and even greater distances from the air.

This works very well in the case of children or patients of autism who tend to lose out on their path and are unable to find their way back. Besides wrists these wristbands can also be worn on the ankle or attached to shoes. Specific transmission frequency is used among wristbands which prevents irrelevant signals from being picked up. Up till now 1500 searches have been conducted using the Lifesaver program and each of the searches has yielded results within a time span of thirty minutes. It also saved money to the tune of $15 million. Now people won't have to wait for much long to get united with their loved ones, all thanks to RFID.