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Handheld RFID readers were used by tourists exploring the Italian Alps at Parco Naturale Veglia-Devero (Veglia-Devero Natural Park). This scenic spot is located on the border of Italy and Switzerland, and a series of RFID tags have been installed along the road for about 2 kilometers. Each tag stores a unique identifier and is linked to site-specific data, giving visitors access to animals, plants and information about the park’s natural history. The solution, designed and installed by multimedia company Demetra, uses RFID hardware provided by Italian value-added distributor Softwork, which also helped design the RFID software functionality to link tag data with media-specific data.
The 8,500-hectare park was built in 1995 and receives 60,000 to 80,000 visitors a year. Some visitors are disabled, such as hearing or sight, so the park wanted to seek a system to disseminate information to disabled people, as well as young children and the elderly with dyslexia, that was easy to use and accessible to all visitors . “Our starting point was to find a highly automated solution,” said Daniele Piazza, the park’s project manager and consultant.
The park considered several wireless solutions (including a GPS solution) to provide visitors with information without having to read signs or flyers, but settled on an RFID solution because RFID transmission would be more reliable. The park opted for automated RFID because RFID does not require any effort by visitors, such as pressing a touchscreen or button. What’s more, the park found that with RFID, simply inserting a tag into a wooden sign would do it without compromising the aesthetics of the landscape.
RFID tags embedded in signboards
The park has an RFID-based guide system called Didà. The project is funded by the Piedmont Region of Italy and the Cariplo Foundation, a charitable organization that supports cultural, scientific and environmental projects. The labels are embedded in wooden signboards in July until they are taken out in October at the end of the tourist season. In August, the park asked visitors to fill out a questionnaire to see how they felt about the system. “These impressions contribute to more convenient use of the system and also play an important role in improving the quality of multimedia content,” said Piazza.
The data that visitors can obtain includes descriptions of tree and flower species in an area, features of land formation and the history and legends of the local environment.
At 13 sites in the park, Demetra has embedded Identec Solutions’ active i-B2 UHF (868 MHz) RFID tags in wooden signage, said Gabriele Villa, Demetra’s technical director. At 10 of these locations, labels and signs are linked to nearby attractions. At the other 3 locations, that is, the location of the fork, the label is connected to the data of the scenic spot on the preceding road. Each tag transmits an ID number approximately every second and can be read from a distance of up to 10 meters.
Visitors to the park were provided with a handheld PDA equipped with an i-Card CF-350 RFID reader from Identec Solutions. The park uses a total of 10 handheld devices, each containing video, photo and audio media provided by Demetra, linked to each tag’s ID number through Demetra’s software. Softwork’s marketing and communications manager Paola Visentin said that when each reader enters the reading range of a tag, it will obtain the tag’s ID number and start playing the video or audio media of the corresponding location, which is available in English and German. and Italian. The handheld itself is housed in a protective case that can be held in the hand or worn on a tethered cord around the neck. For those who ride mountain bikes, the handheld device can also be attached to the bike’s cradle.
Demetra’s back-end RFID software allows park staff to select the language of each handheld device before handing it out to visitors, by plugging a reader into a PC with the software.
At the end of the tour, each tourist returns the handheld device, which is re-plugged into the PC for data upload, in order to know the usage of the device, for example, where the tourists visited and which languages were selected. A report on the tour will then be printed out as a souvenir for tourists, Villa said.
In addition, Demetra has installed control panels along the road that emit scents when touched, such as those of larch, fir trees, yarrow or oregano.
The system was removed in October last year to protect the tags during the winter and is expected to be re-installed in April this year. “The whole area here is covered in snow from October to April,” Visentin said.
Villa said Demetra could design a similar Didà system in the future for other public applications, such as providing data for people with disabilities in hospitals, theatres, cinemas and restaurants. This is a caring app for people with disabilities.
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