RFID moves to academia with palm OS software: keeping tabs on endangered plants at University of Hawaii can aid medical research.

For scientists and academics engaged in field work, accurately identifying and tracking the samples they collect for later study is a key part of the scientific method, as well as one of the most cumbersome duties if they're working with scores of samples. Now, thanks to a convergence of handheld computing and radio-frequency identification, the process of cataloging research specimens and artifacts promises to be easier and more reliable than ever.

RADIO-FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION, commonly known as RFID, is the technology behind highway toll passes and a host of other applications ranging from livestock identification to library book tracking. RFID tags--some are the size of postage stamps--store unique identifying data. The tags are affixed to objects that need to be tracked, and are read by devices that communicate with the tags by radio frequency.

Increasingly common in industry for inventory control, RFID technology is just beginning to find applications in school systems. One of the most innovative of those new academic applications is being used at the University of Hawaii, where molecular geneticist Monto Kumagai is using an RFID reader on his Treo 650 smartphone from palmOne with software from TradeWind Technologies to track plant specimens for a research project in plant disease and conservation.

"Within the United States, Hawaii has the largest number of endangered tropical plants," says Kumagai, an assistant professor in the university's department of molecular biosciences and bioengineering. "We collect leaf samples from endangered or virus-infected plants and return to the lab to study their genetic material" He says the research is specifically focused on plants that may have medicinal applications for human health.

Kumagai and his students collect plant samples from the various Hawaiian Islands, including many remote areas. They make a detailed log entry for each sample, including a digital photograph of the plant, its precise GPS-rendered location and their observations about the plant's condition and the surrounding terrain. Kumagai knew that RFID tags would be the best way to identify the samples, match each one to its log entry, and then track them during lab research.

RFID tags are lightweight, weather-proof and affordable, so it would be easy for Kumagai to insert a tag into the collection bag with each sample. Also, with a Treo, Kumagai and his team can record and store information such as photographs, GPS location, and visual observations without having to carry large, bulky instruments. "When you're spending the day outdoors, you don't want to be carrying large cameras, computers, or printers with you," he says.

As Kumagai was getting ready to launch his research project earlier this year, he realized the solution could be his Treo 650, a mobile phone with all the functionality of a handheld computer, including a camera and a GPS accessory. The clincher: a new company, TradeWind Technologies, had recently introduced an RFID reader-adaptor for handhelds.

"This has become the perfect system for use in the field," Kumagai says. Each time he collects a plant sample, he explained, he encodes an RFID tag with the plant's scientific name, the GPS location of where it was found, and a unique identification code. He then associates that ID code with his field notes and a digital photograph--all with his Treo 650 smartphone. Data can be transferred from a Treo 650 to a Bluetooth- or cellular-enabled computer.

"When we heard about Professor Kumagai's research project we realized that we had a device with academic applications," says Douglas Yeager, CEO of TradeWind Technologies, which is based in Oak Ridge, TN. The company's RFID reader, which is about the size of the tip of a thumb, attaches via the SD memory card slot on palmOne handhelds. It can read or write to RFID tags from a distance of up to seven centimeters.

"We knew there was a lot of potential in industry for an RFID reader that works with handhelds because RFID technology is so pervasive in inventory control and so many people already have handheld computers," Yeager says.

For Kumagai, the combination of RFID technology and smartphones like the Treo 650 represents a significant advance. "In scientific field work, nothing is more important than the ability to identify your samples, to associate them with your observations and log entries, and to catalog them once they reach the lab," he says. "This represents a big step forward in that process."