Issue #217 | Dec. 10, 2009 | by Andy Kowl

Here in the Washington, D.C. area, you can't go to the supermarket without running into lobbyists. Regular folk, they drink beer and play softball just like you or me. Well, at least me.

In the early, new standards days of RFID, a good friend I'll call Jules used to ask me how the RFID industry expected to succeed without lobbyists. Jules has been a lobbyist for stretches of his career, and is knowledgeable about wireless, satellite, military and other technology; but I used to pooh-pooh such craziness.

After all, our "industry" can't even agree on what RFID is, exactly. What would we tell the lobbyist to advocate?

RFID goes in and out of favor, mostly out, when it comes to mentioning your technology even contains RFID. I occasionally enjoy provoking arguments with certain NFC, Wi-Fi ID and smart card denizens who pretend their technology is not a form of RFID. In that way, RFID has become like the great Groucho Marks line, "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept someone like me as a member."

Now it looks like the United States may get serious about infrastructure spending, with numbers like $200 billion being floated. Maybe it's time for that lobbyist.

Helping to define infrastructure
Infrastructure is not just concrete and steel, at least in the 21st Century it ought not to be. It is absolutely valid that auto-ID technologies be required to make any infrastructure build-outs become "smart."

Start with new roads. Our web editor Monica Kowl ran a story last week about PrePass weigh stations, sort of a robust, commercial trucking version of RFID pioneer EZ Pass. PrePass is an automatic vehicle ID system that enables transponder-equipped vehicles to be pre-screened at designated weigh stations and port-of-entry facilities. A self-powered two-way RF transponder identifies the truck to the site's computer as it approaches a roadside check facility, which then accesses a central database holding all of the vehicle's current safety and registration credentials. Cleared vehicles are able to "bypass" the facility while traveling at highway speed, eliminating the need to stop.

How is this for infrastructure benefits: according to the article, PrePass has processed more than 20 million weigh station events in Virginia, an early implementer, reducing fuel consumption by 8 million gallons and emissions by 18 thousand metric tons.

Passenger communication on America's highways
Driving back from New England after Thanksgiving, the New Jersey Turnpike closed down, tripling the time spent on the road by my family and thousands of others. All of us burning hours and hours of more fossil fuel.

We tuned into the weak AM station with turnpike updates during the short stretch within its broadcast range. It had information on a loop telling us where to get off the road. Watching the thousands of cars who missed the primo exit, clearly they did not get the message.

Otherwise all we had were some signs saying "Congestion Ahead," not so helpful as we sat there, not moving. There are better ways of communicating information on our roads. I was on my iPhone with information of alternative routes and a story about the accident that caused this nightmare. The U.S. does not have to go to full blown telematics, but what a waste to build a road with no modern communication.

Aboveground; underground
Plenty has been written on America's need for a smart energy grid, mostly above ground. Each percentage point of lost electric power saved can power some obscene amount of homes if only we used smart technology to better deliver and allocate the energy. For this and other benefits including national security, this infrastructure is crucial.

How about below ground, whether for building tunnels or creating subterranean infrastructure? Imagine driving through freshly cut tunnels, not well lit and with sight limited by no rear or side view mirrors, where intersections provide no visibility as to what is traveling on the cross road. The vehicles used for this are major capital investments. When (not if) they collide, costs are measured not only in damage to the vehicles, but also in the downtime of the project, to say nothing of the human safety element.

In Australia, industry originals RFID, Inc. teamed with Pacific Automation, their technology partner in Perth, to create a new product that solves this. The Collision Alert System, a highly customized, 433 MHz, long range active tag system, "sees around corners."

“In this rough and tumble underground world, mirrors would be ripped off in short order,” says Richard de Jong of Pacific Automation. “You’ve got to keep in mind these vehicles are bouncing off walls, boring into walls . . . It’s a rough world down there.”

So it is not just infrastructure elements where RFID comes into play – it is the building of the infrastructure.

Bring on the advocates
Some larger industry participants belong to the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They are the two most powerful business lobbies in town, but also have much on their plate. RFID players like Microsoft and Savi's parent Lockheed Martin have their own lobbyists; but again, RFID undoubtedly is an afterthought.

Who can look out for RFID's interests? There are some wannabe "associations," with one industry fringe character who seems to start a new one every month; but these are of no consequence. AIM, the Association for Automatic Identification and Mobility, is for real, but does not have the clout necessary.

Alas, there is no simple answer. And that is the perfect time to give Groucho the last word: "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."