McDonald’s and other companies try out TAG-sensing temperature recorders
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A European McDonald’s is trying out an RFID solution, which aims to provide real-time temperature and location data of temperature-sensitive items such as fresh foods and medicines that are manufactured end-to-consumer. The system is provided by the Norwegian company TAG Sensing. The temperature recorder has a built-in NFC HF or EPC Gen2 UHF passive RFID chip, a temperature sensor, a clock, an antenna and a printed battery. The complete solution also includes RFID readers, printers, cloud software and smartphone applications. At present, a McDonald’s in Europe not only uses the product to identify location information, but also intends to use temperature information to determine the abnormality of the product during transportation.
The company’s co-founder and CEO Knut Nygard said that the McDonald’s store began testing the technology this morning. Others, including food manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies, are also preparing to test the system.
(The TAG-sensing data logger contains a passive RFID inlay, temperature sensor, clock, printed battery, and a battery-driven sensor embedded in an adhesive label)
In the past, food temperature monitoring had several difficulties. Since products often need to be handled by many people or transported over long distances, a complete record of the product temperature history has become a very difficult task. Even if the temperature is only monitored at the production site, it is difficult to know the data at any time (such as when loading). The data logger can provide not only real-time temperature, but also historical data.
Currently, there are only some temperature recorder solutions that can track temperature-sensitive products at the end of the supply chain, and they are very expensive. The cheapest of these competing products is about 15 to 20 euros. Therefore, it is very necessary to develop an inexpensive RFID temperature recording tag.
For other recorders on the market, users often need to deploy a fixed temperature recorder in the production site, a fixed temperature controller in the transportation unit, and a fixed device in the warehouse and distribution center. None of these solutions can provide a complete solution-a panorama that can provide insight into the entire life cycle of the product. In addition, transportation is often the weakest link.
TAG Sensing was established in 2012 and initially provided UHF RFID technology for tracking solutions. The companies are from the Visa and MasterCard credit card industries, so they are very familiar with RFID chip providers. They also hope to bring expertise in security and chip encryption to RFID companies.
To this end, they tested the technology in a salmon producer. TAG has developed a cost-effective RFID temperature sensing system for them, which can track individual boxes through disposable tags.
(The NFC version of the tag can be read with a smartphone running a TAG sensing application)
TAG Sensing also provided additional printers, readers, software, applications, data logger tags, and its partner CodeIT was responsible for the installation.
The TAG sensing system usually works like this: the user can use an RFID printer to print and encode a data recording label, which not only has a unique ID number, but also sets the time for the data logger to wake up, read, store, and sleep. The reading distance of NFC technology is 5 decimeters, while that of UHF RFID is 0.5-10 meters (varies according to the tag design).
The tag size of Tag sensor is 54mm*85.6mm, and the thickness is 1.5mm. Next year, the company will provide a version label with an eco-printed antenna. Currently, the chip has a built-in temperature sensor, and other sensors will be integrated in the future, including vibration and humidity sensors.
The data logging label can be customized with the logo of the user’s company, and the memory of the chip is large enough. The battery capacity can support storing 841 temperature reading records within 18 months. The cost of these tags is low enough that users can discard them after one-time use. Of course, they can also be reused.
Tag-sensing tags also come with a back glue, which can be attached to the inside or outside of the box. The tag can be read using portable readers and fixed readers. The NFC version of the tag can also be read using an NFC mobile phone. After the reader reads the tag temperature history, the data will be uploaded to the tag management system (TMS) of TAG sensor for storage. These data cannot be tampered with, so as to ensure the authenticity of the data.
In addition, the software can issue warnings or reminders to the authorized party in order to solve the problem in a timely manner.
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