Public Funding for Pervasid Limited

To date, the tracking of individual products and components in applications such as industrial, retail, healthcare and manufacturing has been challenging to achieve in a commercially viable way. Active (battery powered) tags, although allowing a long-read range, are expensive, while reliably detecting cheap compact and ultrathin passive (battery free) tags is difficult, particularly over a distance of more than 2-3 metres. PervasID, a Cambridge University spin-out, has developed a robustly patented product that enables highly reliable reading of standard off-the-shelf passive RFID tags over wide areas, using a fixed infrastructure \[1\]. This technology has been installed by major UK & European retailers, Aerospace manufacturing companies, EU, US and Asian integrators and healthcare providers (including the NHS) around the globe and has been found to outperform all other passive systems on the market, including that from technology giants, such as Intel. A <1% error rate is achieved even for densely packed devices. This technology is now generating sales revenues of \>£1M per year to major companies such as Stanley Black & Decker. Although PervasID is confident that its patented technology is technically world leading, we have identified the need to enhance the wide-area system architecture to provide virtual wireless boundaries with highly accurate bidirectional movement information at portals. We have identified a solution to achieve this using a combination of steerable tag suppression technology with data analytics that will achieve very high accuracy even for a large number of tags. Analysis by potential customers has shown this could reduce stock shrinkage by around £100,000 per annum per facility. The new solution will aim to deliver an ROI of just 1 year for customers such as this and allow PervasID to address much larger markets. A successful project will enable PervasID to build the RFID systems (via OEM agreements), which will be sold to end customers and system integrators along with other services such as data analytics, installed system design, installation support, service and operational support. \[1\] S. Sabesan, M. Crisp, R. V. Penty and I. H. White, "Wide Area Passive UHF RFID System using Antenna Diversity Combined with Phase and Frequency Hopping," IEEE Transactions on Antennas.

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To date, the tracking of individual products and components in applications such as retail, healthcare and manufacturing has been challenging to achieve in a commercially viable way. Active (battery powered) tags, although allowing a long-read range, are expensive, while reliably detecting cheap compact and ultrathin passive tags is difficult, particularly over a distance of more than 2-3 metres. PervasID, a Cambridge University spin-out, has developed a robustly patented product (patent numbers: EP2564467 A1, EP2564229 A2, US9384376 B2 and US9367785 B2) that enables highly reliable reading of standard off-the-shelf passive RFID tags over wide areas, using a fixed infrastructure [1]. The PervasID technology has been tested more than 20 times by major UK/European Retailers, EU/US/Asian integrators and healthcare providers (including Harland Simon and the NHS) around the Globe and has been found to outperform all other passive systems on the market, including that from technology giants, such as Intel. >99% error rate is achieved even for densely packed devices. Although PervasID is confident that its patented technology is technically world leading, various technological and economical challenges remain to be overcome if the technology is to have wide commercial potential. This project therefore aims to develop a low-cost next generation novel system architecture, with an accurate location capability and novel antenna technology allowing an 85% reduction in hardware costs. The product has been predicted to deliver a potential retail sales uplift from 4-10% and a shrinkage reduction of 1-5%. Similar benefits are seen in inventory security such as for healthcare applications. A successful project will enable the partners to build the RFID systems (via OEM agreements), which will be sold to end customers and system integrators along with other services such as installed system design, installation support, service and operational support. [1] S. Sabesan, M. Crisp, R. V. Penty and I. H. White, "Wide Area Passive UHF RFID System using Antenna Diversity Combined with Phase and Frequency Hopping," IEEE Transactions on Antennas.

Item level tracking is considered the ultimate solution to inventory control in retail. Recent price reductions in passive (battery-free) ultra high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) tags have enabled individual items to be tracked from source to shop floor for the first time. However, the reading of such battery-free tags remains a challenge. The reliable read range of currently available fixed readers is restricted to a few meters (typically 2-3m), while the passive tags are often capable of being read at up to 10m, but with a significant chance of missed detection. To overcome these difficulties, RFID installations so far have relied on fixed portal readers at pinch points, or hand held readers requiring manual intervention. PervasID, a Cambridge University spin-out, has been researching a disruptive fixed, passive UHF RFID reader technology that enables highly reliable reading of standard off the shelf passive UHF RFID tags using a fixed infrastructure over wide areas. There is also the potential to provide location information for the tags within the wide area read zone. The PervasID technology removes the restriction on read range, giving near 100% detection over areas of up to 20m x 20m, and is able to scale to much larger areas. This patented technology has the potential to allow businesses such as high street retailers which use tagging on high-value goods to monitor the location of those items both cheaply and effectively. This project aims to develop a pre-production prototype and test it on realtime inventory of a retailer’s high density merchandise within its store. A successful project will enable the business to build (via OEM agreements) the RFID readers, which will be sold to end customers and system integrators along with other services such as system design.

Although radio frequency identification (RFID) is finding a growing range of applications such as in TFL’s Oyster cards, passive ultra high frequency (UHF) RFID has the potential to have a far greater impact across a massive range of commercial sectors if remote identification of items could be achieved without requiring the human intervention that is needed for conventional technologies such as bar codes. Since the energy required to operate the tag is transmitted as a radio wave, no battery is required in the tags resulting in very low tag costs. To date take up of passive UHF RFID technology has been slower than predicted, largely because the reliable read range has so far been limited to only a few meters. While the maximum specified read range of the current generation of tags is in the range of 10-15m, this cannot be achieved in practice with high read reliability. The limited reliable range has restricted the range of applications where passive UHF RFID can be deployed to those where portals are practical. Where wide area coverage is required, currently active tags must be used which are typically 10-1000x more expensive and have a limited battery life. This project will assess the market viability of a passive UHF RFID wide area solution developed at Cambridge University which enables truly pervasive coverage with reliable tag detection. The PervasID patented technology makes use of multiple interrogator antennas distributed over an area as large as 20mx20m where tags are to be read. These antennas are able to work together in a collaborative manner to reliably detect the tags present. Where larger areas are required, the technology scales through the use of multiple cells. The technology has been developed into a prototype which has been deployed in pilot studies with test customers in applications as diverse as document management, asset tracking and security. The key objective of the project is to identify the best route to market for this technology.