Wednesday, 9 August 1995

I tried to send the following earlier today, using the Reply feature, but apparently it's not possible to reply to the list in this way, as my message does not seem to have gotten through.

On Wed, 9 Aug 1995 07:47:36 EST Karen Wilson <Karen_Wilson at RBGSYD.GOV.AU> wrote:

I think the technology Karen is thinking of might be SUPERTAG. Is this the same as the PIT just referred to in a message by Julian Humphries? The original message about SUPERTAG is repeated below:

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Return-Path: <TAXACOM at HARVARDA.HARVARD.EDU> Date: Tue, 17 May 1994 08:48:00 GMT+200 Reply-To: matt at MATIES.SUN.AC.ZA Sender: Biological Systematics Discussion List <TAXACOM at HARVARDA.HARVARD.EDU> From: Matt Buys <ma...@MATIES.SUN.AC.ZA> Subject: SUPERTAG X-To: taxacom at harvarda.harvard.edu To: Multiple recipients of list TAXACOM <TAXACOM at HARVARDA.HARVARD.EDU> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUPERTAG

CSIR (South Africa) is the developer of the concept and is focusing on transferring their knowledge to applications providers.

Just imagine if one could accurately "read" the entire contents of a herbarium shelf in less than a second without the need for unpacking; stock-taking could be a simple act of passing a scanner over the cupboards to document the entire contents within minutes....

This, and much more, is no longer in the realm of science fiction. The CSIR has developed a specialised, fully patented electronic tagging system with the vision of incorporating a minuscule radio transponder in the printed packaging of just about any item at very low cost.

What makes the CSIR system totally unique, is that it includes protocols to allow for many tags to respond to "interrogation" by a reader at the same time. Hitherto the ensuing multiple response signals interfere with one another confusing the signal. To avoid the problem radio tagged items have had to be moved one at a time past a reader. This is often impractical and sometimes impossible.

The CSIR system, which is protected by patents and is being licensed internationally, allows tags to be read at the same time from readers with different polarisations to allow for "unfriendly" orientations of the tag antennas. The protocols applied allow many items of the same type, with the same case or product number, e.g. a number of packets of soap powder, to be counted without the need for serial numbers.

The tag comprises a single silicon chip that, for example, can be attached to a herbarium label or specimen, and is invisible to the user except for the benefits derived from it. The tags are called passive because they do not need their own batteries. Instead they extract energy from the radio frequency (RF) field used by the interrogating reader to "illuminate" the items to be identified. The tags can be read from up to four metres away. The properties of radio allow the radio waves to penetrate paper and so read tags that are not visible.

Key problems that prevented the implementation of such an approach in the past include the lack of simple, low-cost designs specifically targeted at this problem; the large physical size of currently available transponders; the non-uniform distribution of RF fields from the interrogator; interference caused by many tags all responding to the interrogator at the same time, thereby jamming the reader in the interrogator; the impossibility of electronic counting of many tags with exactly the same type number without depending on a system of serial numbers; the physical attachment of transponders to items; and a limited responding range for passive tags.

The CSIR has solved most of these problems with its new system, and simulated field tests have proved the system to be highly accurate.

While tagging of goods in supermarkets is the long term aim the new system has numerous other possible applications, especially owing to its capability of handling responses from many tags with different orientations. Early applications could include checking the contents of a truck by simply opening the rear door, taking an inventory of a warehouse by means of a portable scanner, or examining a book case or pile of documents with a hand scanner to identify the presence of a sought article. Other possible uses are in sorting luggage at airports; sorting parcels; asset control, people tracking, mail routing and animal tagging, and last but not least, for curatorial purposes.

**************************************************************** * Matt Buys * * * Dept. of Botany * Tel: (021) 808 3604 * * University of Stellenbosch * Fax: (021) 808 4336 * * Private Bag X5018 * * * 7599 Stellenbosch * E-Mail: matt at maties.sun.ac.za * * South Africa * * ****************************************************************

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Mary E. Petersen Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark Tel: +45-35 32 10 67 Fax: +45-35 32 10 10 E-mail: mepetersen at zmuc.ku.dk -------------------------------------------------