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Connect&Go, a subsidiary of RFID Academia in Montreal, recently launched an ultra-high frequency (UHF) conference solution, which was put into use for the first time at this year’s C2MTL conference.and other high frequency using NFCRFIDUnlike the tag wristband and RFID reader solutions, this UHF solution is a disruptive system. Each attendee will wear a lanyard through the gate. Then, the UHF reader built into the gate and the chandelier in the conference hall will automatically read the lanyard information and record the location information of the participants.
C2MTL is not only a business conference, it is also a festival. The solution is designed to meet the needs of tech conference organizers, allowing organizers to better understand the movement of participants.
This year’s conference was held May 27-29 at Arsenal (an art conference complex converted from an industrial building) and was attended by around 7,000 people. Most of them are executives of large companies. The conference invited Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and director James Cameron to participate in speeches. In addition, they participated in a series of activities, such as sitting in a drying pool filled with plastic balls wearing blindfolds and discussing business issues with other attendees.
Therefore, C2MTL organizers looked for a solution to help identify attendee locations, monitor attendee behavior during meetings, and relieve attendees from the tedious authentication process. At the same time, C2MTL also hired Martin Enault as the company’s vice president to help RFID technology research. Enault, founder of RFID technology company Intellitix, was also looking for a hands-free RFID solution (often with a built-in high-frequency tag).
Enault said C2MTL considered several options and settled on a system provided by the RFID Institute, which uses UHF RFID badges to track visitors. Enault explained that the problem now is how to ensure the correct reading of the tags when entering the door and distinguishing the different tags.
Connect&Go offers a control solution for festivals, music festivals and conferences that includes an HF wristband that can be used to enter and exit venues and share event content. Not only that, C2MTL’s system can also automatically issue an alarm, such as when a person enters the clubhouse when they shouldn’t. In addition, the system can automatically identify the number of visitors in each area to judge the behavior of participants and the current flow of people.
Anthony Palermo, founder of RFID Academia, said the biggest challenge for Connect&Go was capturing visitors’ movements in real time from any direction. There are a total of four gates with labels attached to the venue, and C2MTL wants to know from which gate visitors enter the gate. Each attendee was given a badge with a built-in UHF Smartrac Frog 3D tag and NFC passive HF tag SMARTRAC. In this way, the badge can be read simply with a smartphone.
On each side of the entry gate are Connect&Go devices, which have a reader antenna and an RF blocking plate. When a participant passes through the gate, the reader will automatically record the badge’s unique ID number (including participant payment information) and upload it to the Connect&Go software. If the information meets the requirements, the on-site indicator lights up green, otherwise a red signal is displayed. “We didn’t want to treat everyone as a prisoner, so we used a ‘relaxed’ approach to the design,” Palermo said.
In the conference hall, three RFID readers are deployed on the ceiling to track the movements of the participants. Each reader can track an area of 30 inches by 30 inches. The software then collects information on the tag location and dwell time.
Enault said the data could allow conference organizers to uncover previously unseen phenomena. For example, organizers can learn about locations where water is drank the most. This information will help organizers optimize the placement of food and beverages.
At the same time, C2MTL also plans to expand the use of Connect&Go in 2015, including: adding additionalReaderarea, deploy the Bluetooth Low Energy Beacon and develop a corresponding application. With beacon and the app, participants can share meeting information more easily. “I hope BLE can become more reliable on Android and BlackBerry,” Enault said. In addition, Palermo said, RFID Academia can also provide beacon products with BLE features.
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