RFID in 2010: The New Dawn
• in 2009/2010, RFID events in China are five times bigger by attendance than the biggest RFID events in the U.S. and Europe; and finally
• most products will be source tagged, and because China is one of the largest exporters the tags will be supplied there.
Active RFID expands into Wireless Sensor Networks
Traditionally, active RFID has been tags with a battery to boost read range or add extra functionality to the tag such as sensors. Then came Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS). In 2010, these two sectors will be a total of $610 million in value, where $225 million is spent on tags and the rest on infrastructure, software and services. Now there are Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) which may or may not be used to form mesh (self forming and self healing) networks. Those in active RFID and RTLS have added extra functionality to create WSN but we also have new standards emerging, such as ZigBee, which are part of the scene.
Over 20 million ZigBee tags have been sold and are used to form mesh networks for "smart" electricity meters, preventing the need for manual reading of the meters and allowing rapid response to high use. This is increasingly becoming mandated as new houses move towards having "greener" credentials.