Oct. 29, 2009 – In continuing our talk with V.P. of Sales and Marketing for Mojix, Kevin Duffy, we probed in detail to better understand what long range passive RFID really means.

Since each eNode has its own antenna reporting back to the STAR, which is maybe analogous to a controller than to a reader, as you said, is each node more analogous to a reader?

DUFFY: Each eNode creates the equivalent to a traditional reader because it creates an individual interrogation zone.

So, when you talk about hundreds of feet and more, how many feet away from one antenna can an item be?

DUFFY: As you know, the FCC limits your transmit power whether you are doing eNodes or traditional readers. So your distance from the eNode, or a traditional reader, is limited by that. In that case, Mojix or anyone is pretty much going to be operating within thirty feet or so.

Well that is what I would figure. So, if an eNode is like a reader, then basically the coverage you are talking about is not per reader, as you said, it is per controller.

I am just trying to conceptualize this, Kevin, so bear with me here. So, if a node is like a reader, then you might have 512 readers, called nodes, which are each more or less within a 30 ft. range. No?

DUFFY: No, you have to take a systemic term. The traditional reader is systematic because the transmitter that provides the expectation energy and the receiver in the same box. So the distance to energize the tag, and the distance to receive the energy from the tag, are equal.

So the transmitter and the antenna you are talking about are not always on the reader, itself, actually, right?

DUFFY: No, but they are physically tied to similar distances. The transmit distance to activate the tag, and the received distance to receive the energy coming back from the tag to the reader, are pretty equivalent.

In a Mojix system, it is very different because the distributed exciter, what we call these transmitters that provide the activation energy, can be 600 feet away from the receiver, or what we call the STAR.

The exciters can be 600 feet away from the receiver.

DUFFY: But, they have to be within thirty feet of the tags they are exciting.

So, with all due respect, if an exciter/eNode is the equivalent of a reader, and that reader’s antenna, that eNode’s antenna, is within a regulated range of 30 feet, then the 600 feet is how far back the reader can report to the controller wirelessly? Is this wireless or is it wired?

DUFFY: Let's step through this for a moment. The fundamental break for the Mojix’ architecture is to separate the function of activating the tag from the function of reading the back from the tag. And the function of activating the tag has to occur within 30 feet, whether it is Mojix or anyone.

But once the tag is activated, that energy that comes from the tag must be received by a receiver. Conventional systems have a receiver sensitivity that only allows them to receive that energy from about 30 feet, the activation distance. The Mojix system can detect that energy, in non line of sight, with reflection from over 600 feet. So, by deploying 512 of these excitation nodes, have been activating tags anywhere within that space. Each ENode can be placed up to 600 feet away.

Is the node wired to the STAR, or is it wireless?

DUFFY: Both. We have both versions. You can have a cable to the STAR or you can have it wirelessly communicating to the STAR.

It doesn’t matter wireless versus cabled to about that 600 range?

DUFFY: Right. It depends, it is a deployment choice, whether your cables are wireless.

What do you see as the next step in your product’s development? Are you moving it towards real time location versus asset tracking or do you distinguish between the two very much?

DUFFY: Well, I think they are one in the same. I mean, if you are doing real time location, you are locating an asset.

Yes.

DUFFY: You know, it is kind of semantics, right?

Right.

DUFFY: For the Mojix System – and if you think of the intended purpose of EPC Global to be sort of for goods maybe going through a portal – we have extended that to completely wall to wall photo feeling. Then if you look at sort of the motion for real time purposes, it was believed before Mojix, then you had to have active technology to do that.

Mojix now makes it possible to get active technology performance with passive technology cost. Which means we can eliminate the need for an active tag, yet still preserve the ability to locate and watch field present detection across hundreds of thousands of square feet. And then in a real time, track any individual tag throughout that operating area.