Introduction

We all love to see the “new and improved” label on anything, from our laundry detergents to our digital cameras, to our cars. Now there may be an emerging technology that “one ups” RFID (radio frequency identification), providing an answer to some of the most vexing questions facing the RFID market today such as reading around and through water and metals and providing a cost-effective means for item-level tagging. It is known as RuBee, and this technology, which has already been heralded by industry observers as “RFID 2.0,” may be the most exciting development of this year – and the next – in the global identification market.

What is RuBee?

RuBee is the commercial name for what is officially known as LWID (Long Wavelength ID), as defined by The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). The moniker was given to the technology by engineers at Miami-based Visible Assets, who coined the name for LWID technology after the hit 1967 Rolling Stones’ song, “Ruby Tuesday.”

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In 2009, the IEEE announced that it had codified a new visibility network protocol standard, which will be known as IEEE P1902.1. The standard provides for physical and data-link protocols, based on RuBee technology. According to the IEEE, RuBee: “will provide for asset visibility networking that fills the gap between the non-networked, non-programmable, back-scattered, RFID tags widely used for asset tracking and the high-bandwidth radiating protocols.” The technology is similar to Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11), Blue-tooth (IEEE 802.15), and Zigbee (802.15.4), all of which are based on radiating transceivers.

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There has been intense debate within the industry and press over whether RuBee is or isn’t “RFID.” RuBee uses almost exclusively magnetic energy rather than the electrical – or radio frequency – energy used with HF and UHF RFID. RuBee operates at low frequencies, below 450 kHz and optimally at 132 kHz, which is far below the AM radio band. Because RuBee uses only micro-watts of magnetic energy to communicate between the tag and the reader (known as a router, which is simpler in design and lower in cost than RFID readers), RuBee alleviates any of the safety concerns with traditional RFID. Because the technology uses low frequencies that are not attenuated by water and metal, RuBee tags can be read in and around environments that contain high amounts of liquid and metal far more accurately than traditional RFID. RuBee tags have been demonstrated to be readable even when buried underground.