This Doesn’t Look Right – Should I Contact Technical Support?

Dec 11, 2015

About the author

I have been working for Voyantic as a Product Specialist since March 2014 mainly focusing on technical support. Before joining Voyantic I have 15 years' experience in customer support on telecommunications industry.

Content

What do you do if, one morning, a new light with some strange symbol is suddenly lit on your car’s dashboard? You probably pull over and start browsing the car owner manual. You may be a little worried. Did I do something wrong? Can I fix this myself, or does the car need to be serviced? How long will I need to survive without my car?
In the same way, your Tagformance, the RFID test system that you typically use every day may have a problem you need to solve. You may already be an experienced user, or maybe you have just recently started to work with the system. When a new error message pops up or you get unexpected measurement results, it’s just like with your car. What’s wrong? Should I contact Voyantic Technical Support?

The answer to the last question is yes. You should.

*‘No such thing as a stupid question’ is a common phrase with a long history, and it makes perfect sense to me. *

If you have a problem with anything, and there is a possibility to get it solved quickly by asking someone who can help you, why shouldn’t you? The one who asks the “stupid question” may be doing a service to everyone, including the vendor, by pointing out a visible improvement to the product.

Here are some more or less typical situations where you might wonder if you should contact the vendor or just carry on. Uncertainty: You are performing measurements that look nice and smooth, but deep down, you are still wondering whether the results are correct? Is there some bias in the device? Am I measuring the right way? By contacting Voyantic Technical Support, we can verify if the device is OK by comparing the reference tag measurement results with the same measurement setup. We can also measure your sample tags and give a second opinion of the results and maybe give pointers on what else you can measure from your tags.

Differences between sites: You may have a colleague in the next room or on the other side of the globe doing the same measurements that you are. The equipment may be the same, the setup may be identical, but still, your results don’t match completely. For example, you get a theoretical read range value of 11 meters, and your colleague measures 10 meters. One meter sounds like a lot, but is it after all? By looking at the measurement data, we can verify whether the difference is something to worry about, or if it fits into production variation and typical measurement accuracy. Other factors, such as temperature, may cause a difference. The effect of temperature is described in more detail in an Application Note, which can be downloaded here. While visiting the site, you may find other Application Notes worth reading too.

Missing features: Different Tagformance measurement options are enabled with the license file. We can create license files where any measurement option can be enabled for a given time. So, if you think that one or more options could be useful for your work, we can enable the option for a trial period. To name a few;

Scripter is a great tool to automate your daily measurement routines and reduce the human error from the results.
The Tagformance has two Application Programming Interfaces, APIs, that enable you to write your software that uses the Tagformance device. The LabVIEW API is a perfect match for LabVIEW users, and the DLL API serves users of other programming languages.
Memory management is a brand new tool for one of the hot topics, sensor tags, for example. With Memory management, it is possible to verify changes of any memory address content within seconds.

All this said, do not hesitate to contact us! In most cases, it is a win-win situation where you will get your problem solved or a question answered, and we get valuable feedback, which will help us in making our products even better. We are here to help you – send us a message!

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Tagged-Item Grading Helps Retail UHF RFID Projects

Aug 14, 2015

About the author

Teemu Ainasoja

I am Sales Director at Voyantic. I have over 15 years of experience from the RFID industry in Europe and the USA. I have two master's degrees: in industrial engineering and in marketing, and two patents in auto-ID technology. I am actively participating in RAIN RFID alliance activities.

Content

Retail and the retail supply chain are among the most significant users of UHF RFID technology. However, retail RFID projects are not the most simple ones. Items in retail come in all shapes, sizes, and materials. They are shipped in different boxes and stored and displayed on all kinds of racks, shelves, and tables. Also, different readers are used in various applications: logistics tracking, inventory count, RFID EAS, POS, and so on. I was involved in several retail RFID projects, and I have seen how complicated the performance optimization can be.

GS1 Tagged-Item Performance Protocol (TIPP) was developed to help retail RFID by making buying and selling tags easier. But what do the TIPP guidelines mean, and what kind of testing is required?

Goal: Accuracy in Inventory Counting

The purchase of RFID tags for retail items used to be complicated. The goal is simple: to have good counting accuracy (read rate) and a long and controlled read range. But I have seen how simple read range and counting accuracy requirements turn into a complicated mess of lengthy and costly field testing and piloting. Tags and readers are often selected separately, and system-level optimization is left to a trial-and-error process, if not entirely forgotten.

One approach used to be describing various use cases in detail and relying on the suppliers and technology providers to deliver tags that would work in all of the applications. The supplier was accountable for performance but had in practice minimal possibilities to achieve the goal.

Another strategy was to test extensively and to list accepted tags for different product categories. That way, the supplier was no longer accountable but was forced to buy specified tags without a possibility for price competition.

Finally, when using TIPP, the supplier is accountable for performance, and also has all the tools needed for delivering and verifying it.

Tagged- Item Grading Makes Retail RFID Projects Easier

The Tagged Item Performance Protocol makes buying and selling tags easier. The idea is familiar with many goods, from engine oils to clothes. It is a lot easier for a buyer to purchase shoes of size 41 than to provide a list of different measures of the foot. And it is a lot easier for the supplier to produce, stock, and sell shoes with a few different sizes than to verify that the unique requirements of each customer are met.

Similarly: it is easier to buy and sell tagged items performing according to a grade S05B than to list and verify all relevant performance requirements individually. As a result, a retailer’s list of requirements could be, for example:

items to be tagged with UHF RFID tags with C1G2 protocol
tagged items following GS1 Format & Symbol Placement for the Electronic Product Code guideline with C1G2 protocol
performance according to GS1 TIPP S05B grade
coded with SGTIN-96.

Now there is no longer a need to describe in detail which RFID tags to use and how to place them. Also, the suppliers and tag providers don’t need to guess what the use case description means from an RF performance point of view. TIPP translates complex system-level requirements into simplified component level pass/fail verification that any vendor can handle themselves.

The Voyantic Tagged-Item Grading System is 100% aligned with the GS1 Tagged-Item Performance Protocol (TIPP). The system automates TIPP grade validation and testing and provides results quickly and easily. It also enables TIPP grade audits to be performed by anyone. The Voyantic Tagged-Item Grading System is available as a complete turn-key setup.

Want to learn more? Read more about the Voyantic Tagged-Item Grading System! Don’t forget to download our handy tool for evaluating read ranges with different RFID readers and tags with various TIPP grades below!

Download a Tool for Evaluating Read Ranges

Download a handy tool for evaluating read ranges with different RFID readers and tags with various TIPP grades. In the tool you can select a TIPP grade, input reader parameters, and see what kind of read range is expected from the system.

Download now

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How to Improve Efficiency of the R&D Team in UHF Tag Design

Jul 23, 2015

About the author

Voyantic Marketing

Content

中文版 Chinese version

Being responsible for sales of RFID performance measurement solutions, I’ve had the privilege of meeting with several companies and their design professionals around the world using very different methods for measuring UHF tag performance. Which is the best method then? I’d say it depends on your requirements – for a single essential measurement, you may use various methods, and even a simple technique can be sufficient. However, if you are looking for a way to improve the throughput and efficiency of your R&D team in tag design, the differences in methods are enormous. So, where does the efficiency come from?

The simplest method in UHF tag measurement is using an RFID reader to verify if the tag can be read from a certain distance or not. This pass/fail type of method is easy to do and fast for sure. However, most of the critical characteristics cannot be measured nor verified at all. Another commonly used way based on a set of generic measurement instruments like a signal generator, a network analyzer, and a power meter, is more advanced but unfortunately not anymore fast nor easy to use.

As the two methods introduced above are not ideal in the first place, neither of them can be the real solution to provide increased efficiency either – don’t worry, there is another approach available.

Purpose-built RFID Measurement System

In the R&D environment, most RFID measurements set high requirements for reliability, accuracy, and repeatability of the results and the test method itself. This is the case also in developing new UHF tag designs, thriving to the best possible performance, and at the same time balancing various requirements for different parameters. In this kind of environment the key questions are;

How quickly can a set of various measurements be performed?
Can the measurements be repeated automatically during the design iterations?
What are the possibilities in storing, analyzing, and sharing the results?
What kind of competence is required to perform the measurements?

The ideal solution addressing these requirements is a purpose-built RFID measurement system, providing an easy-to-use user interface, high measurement accuracy, compliance with standard RFID protocols, and wideband sweep capability.

How to Enhance the Efficiency of the R&D Team?

Ease-of-Use

There is inherent ease-of-use in the concept of a purpose-built measurement system, as there is only one tester device, including all the necessary accessories and an easy-to-use graphical user interface. A predefined measurement set-up procedure based on a reference tag ensures correct system start and exact measurement results.

Ease of use improves the efficiency of each user regardless of their technical competence. However, the real benefit comes out of the fact that also less experienced persons can easily be trained to perform extensive measurements without having in-depth RF knowledge.

One System – Several Measurements

A dedicated RFID measurement system includes all the necessary measurement functions presented in a pull-down menu with suggested default settings for each measurement. Wideband sweep measurement performed over a wide frequency range of e.g., 800 – 1000 MHz enables the flexible visual presentation of the tag detuning phenomenon on different materials compared with on-air results.

One Measurement – Several Results

One single measurement, like the Threshold Sweep, provides several calculated results (e.g., Transmitted power, Backscattered power, Electrical Field Strength, and Theoretical Read Range) that can be viewed simply by selecting the desired result view from the Y-axis pull-down menu.

Repeatability and Automation

Once the user has selected the function and started the measurement with relevant parameters, the test system provides the results that are stored in the results database with a timestamp and detailed information on all the parameters used in the measurement. Error-prone human interaction and handling of the results are avoided by automated calculation and management of the results.

The quality of the measurements can be further ensured by defining and storing a sequence of measurement commands (Scripter) for repeated use. Predefined script together with automatic rotation system eliminates human errors when performing e.g., orientation sensitivity measurements in various positions between 0 and 360 degrees. The example script below defines a sequence of two Threshold measurements and one Backscatter measurement.

Conclusions

A purpose-built RFID measurement system combines high measurement accuracy, versatile measurement capability, and ease-of-use – a unique combination that cannot be achieved with traditional methods.

Accordingly, the improvement of the R&D team efficiency is based on:

Quick set-up of the system
Better visibility to the performance of the tag under test
More measurements in the time available
More tests on alternative tag designs in a shorter time
Avoiding human errors
Testing made it possible for non-RF specialist
Shorter time to market for new tag designs.

If you want to learn in detail how the Voyantic Tagformance UHF Measurement System can improve the efficiency of your organization, please download the Tagformance Catalogue below!

Download the Tagformance Pro Catalogue

Learn more about the Voyantic Tagformance® Pro Test Device! By combining RAIN RFID and NFC testing into one compact test device, our all-new Tagformance Pro is a true all-in-one tool for anyone either developing or using RFID technology.

Download now

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Why UHF RFID Tag Developers Should Use Wide Band Performance Testing

Jul 10, 2015

About the author

Teemu Ainasoja

Content

中文版 Chinese version

RFID reader frequencies are controlled by governments and limited to narrow frequency bands that vary around the world. When the performance of a UHF tag is evaluated, focusing only on the narrow reader frequency bands is misleading. I have seen in several RFID projects, how the tag performance in field conditions is different from what is expected, leading to delayed projects and expensive re-planning. Testing in a wide frequency band is needed to get the correct information about and good visibility into UHF RFID tag performance.

Detuning as a Challenge

Typical UHF RFID tags operate with a wide frequency band. However, performance still depends on frequency. In UHF RFID tag development, the tags are usually designed to have maximal read range at the reader frequency. This is achieved by tuning the tag to be most efficient at these frequencies.

Succeed in RFID projects with wideband testing

Detuning creates challenges:

When the tags are attached to different materials, their performance at the reader frequency changes.

The entire performance curve shifts on the frequency scale and a change in read range is observed at the UHF RFID reader frequency. This detuning effect is one of the fundamental physical phenomena affecting real-life RFID system performance. If the detuning is not taken into account, the UHF RFID tag’s read range may be only a fraction of what is intended.

In good design, the detuning is anticipated and taken into account. If the tag is intended to be used on a material that causes 50 MHz of detuning, it can be tuned to have optimal free air performance at a frequency 50 MHz higher than the reader frequency. When the tag is on the material, the tuning and performance become optimal.

If the tag is only tested at the reader frequency, it is almost impossible to design the tuning correctly. A wideband view is needed.

Comparing Tag Designs

An example: An RFID user manufactures items made of rubber. The items are delivered on a cardboard package. The user wants to tag the cardboard boxes and wants to have a maximal read range. The items are shipped, and the RFID tags are read globally. What kind of tag would be the best?

Two tag designs were tested using UHF RFID readers with ETSI (865 MHz -868 MHz) and FCC (902 MHz – 928 MHz) frequency bands. In the test, the reader was moved closer to the tag, and the distance was measured when the tag was read the first time. Each test was made twice.

The results show a big difference in read ranges. Tag design A has a 12 m read range on cardboard, but only 5.5 m on rubber. Tag design B has an opposite performance change: 11 meters on rubber and 6.5 to 8.5 meters on cardboard. There is also a difference between repeated measurements, which is significant, especially on the FCC frequencies.

What Really Happens with the UHF RFID Tags?

Because the reader frequency is limited, it is difficult to get a good overview of what is happening when the tag is attached to different materials. The read range is different in various test scenarios, but it is not clear why. Some explaining phenomena immediately pop into the minds of RFID professionals: multipath propagation and detuning. But the results from reader frequencies do not tell how the detuning works.

Which tag would you recommend? Click below to view the wideband test results of the Tags A and B from the Tagformance system or send me an email and let’s talk more! Voyantic offers RFID measurement systems to help tag designers. With precise test results, it is easier to give recommendations with confidence!

Download the test results

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