Active RFID, RTLS and sensor networks show strong potential for growth.

The market for active RFID and real time locating systems (RTLS) offers good opportunities for growth. IDTechEx recently hosted its 2008 IDTechEx Active RFID and RTLS Summit in Dallas, TX, which showcased potential applications as well as current success stories. Highlights of the event included:

* Focus on Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS). By many parameters, there is substantially more work being done on RTLS than before. For example, the number of companies offering solutions in RTLS has tripled in the last three years. Increasingly, applications for active RFID want RTLS capability, particularly in healthcare, manufacturing and other asset management applications.

Ultra Wide Band (UWB) developer Time Domain, who did a live demo of real time tracking at the event, reports that 2008 is a turning point for UWB--they see a very strong demand and full pipeline for 2009.

IDTechEx expects the RTLS market in 2008 to be $140 million. The conventional active RFID market (not RTLS) is still much larger at $490 million this year, but the majority of that market is for car remotes and their systems, which is a mature market.

* Strong case studies. Tom Bradshaw of Wayne Memorial Hospitals in U.S. spoke of the many paybacks of the RTLS system they are using. One payback alone is the reduction of new IV pumps. That alone pays for the whole system. Applying the system to wheelchairs and other assets results in many direct and rapid cost savings that Mr. Bradshaw covered in detail. The system can pay for itself many times over within a year.

Other end users at the event covered similar success stories, and these give new adopters confidence and clarification of which scenarios active RFID/RTLS can provide strong returns. Still, few success stories are widely published and many are confidential. Working with industry, IDTechEx will aid promotion of success through its RFID Knowledgebase of case studies www.rfidbase.com.

* Standards and growth of systems. Many different systems are being used. Indeed, some are not even RFID, such as ultrasound, infrared or combinations. For some, protocols and applications are already standards, such as ISO 18000 standard use by the military and the ZigBee protocol for wireless networks.

However, many developers felt that while eventually standards are important for the biggest open systems, they are wary of the long timescales involved and are choosing to prioritize the large immediate opportunity of closed loop systems.

Indeed, while the cost of active RFID is reducing, it is not the intent to force prices down to the extent that the costs do not become sustainable for the companies involved--as happened in passive UHF RFID tag supply. In the intended applications, there are sound business cases at existing price points.

* Energy harvesting. A key issue of active RFID tags has always been their lifetime, due to the battery in the tag. A tag lasting two years versus five years has a significant effect on the return on investment of the system.

Battery development has been behind the tag and system development, although new forms of batteries are available from companies such as Enfucell and Cymbet to tackle that. In addition, presentations covered energy harvesting where motion, light, heat, RF and other energy forms can be used to recharge batteries. Several active RFID companies are integrating these into tags already. IDTechEx will release a report on this topic in 2009 as well as an event, covering the high work going on in this area.

* Third generation active RFID. First generation active RFID was a tag communication to a reader for ID and other information. Second generation involves multiple readers to enable RTLS.

Now, third generation is the development of ad hoc networks--the tags become readers--which usually involves sensors for large area wireless sensor networks. This is called Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). It also involves other protocols, many developers are using the ZigBee and other emerging standards for low power, wide area sensor networking. Applications are just emerging but already include monitoring car park spaces and monitoring the temperature of cargo in transit.

The electronic proceedings and audio from the event is available for purchase at www.IDTechEx.com/active.

at a glance

* IDTechEx expects the real time locating systems (RTLS) market to be $140 million in 2008.

* The conventional active RFID market was still much larger at $490 million in 2008, but the majority of that market is for car remotes and their systems, which is a mature market.