The security industry and RFID technology are inextricably linked. RFID technology plays an important role in the application of products and solutions such as intelligent transportation, smart parking, smart access control, and radio frequency anti-theft. As one of the key technologies of security and Internet of Things, RFID is increasingly rich in related products and system solutions, and the market application is gradually deepening, and the application field is expanding and expanding. The establishment of an unmanned convenience store is self-evident for the enhancement of RFID technology as an important interface for the Internet of Things.
First, the "unmanned retail store" on the tuyereAfter the concept of “new retail†was proposed, innovation in the retail industry accelerated. With the penetration of artificial intelligence in various fields, the concept of unmanned stores has entered the public eye. In December last year, the global e-commerce giant Amazon launched the AmazonGo unmanned store. Although it was in the internal test, it still attracted the attention of the industry. Recently, in China, unmanned shops have also been pushed to the forefront by capital and public opinion.
At present, unmanned retail stores can be roughly divided into three categories in terms of technology:
1. AmazonGo and TakeGo use the most popular cutting-edge technologies, such as machine vision, deep learning algorithms, sensor fusion technology, convolutional neural networks, and biometrics. The customer's purchase information is counted by the infrared sensor on the shelf, the pressure sensing device (which confirms which items are taken away), and the load sensor (used to record which items are put back in place), and the product data purchased by the user is transmitted to the Amazon Go store in real time. The information center can be directly left when the customer pays the bill.
2, the second category of representatives are Bingo Box, EATBOX, etc., mainly using RFID tag technology, RFID has more advantages in the identification and anti-theft of goods, the program is relatively mature in technology.
3. The third category, such as the small e micro store, mainly uses the two-dimensional code to complete the identification of the goods. The advantage is that the cost is low, which is closer to the traditional retail.
As far as the shopping experience is concerned, it is obviously impossible to make a shopping experience like Amazon Go and TakeGo, which is relatively simple but more reliable. The Bingo box mainly uses RFID technology, face recognition technology, etc. - RFID tags are attached to the in-store merchandise packaging, which avoids the need for complex image recognition processes like AmazonGo and TakeGo, but also saves manpower. It is a way to transition to the first category of “unmanned retail storesâ€.
Second, RFID technology and analysis of advantages and disadvantages
RFID (Radio Frequency IdenTIficaTIon) technology, that is, radio frequency identification technology, refers to an information recognition technology based on radio, also known as electronic tags. The working principle is mainly to automatically identify the target object and obtain corresponding data through the radio frequency signal. The whole process of work operation is automated without manual intervention, and it is a non-contact automatic identification technology.
Conceptually, RFID is similar to bar code technology. The barcode technology attaches the barcode information to the article, and scans the barcode on the article through the scanner to obtain the information of the article. The RFID technology attaches the RFID tag to the article, and reads the information in the tag into the RFID reader through the radio frequency signal, thereby obtaining the unique information of the article. Compared to traditional barcodes, the advantages of RFID technology are as follows:
1, fast scan
The RFID recognizer can simultaneously recognize and read multiple RFID tags, in contrast, only one bar code can be scanned at a time.
2, penetrating and barrier-free reading
In the case of being covered, RFID can penetrate non-metallic or non-transparent materials such as paper, wood and plastic, and can communicate transparently. The barcode scanner must be able to read the barcode at close range without object blocking. The reason why "unmanned retail stores" can achieve unoccupied cash is mainly to take advantage of this feature of RFID technology.
3, the data has a large memory capacity
The capacity of the one-dimensional barcode is about 30 characters, the maximum capacity of the two-dimensional barcode can be stored from 2 to 3000 characters, and the maximum capacity of the RFID is several mega-characters. With the development of the memory carrier, the data capacity is also expanding.
4, small size, diverse shapes
RFID is not limited in size and shape in reading, and it does not need to match the fixed size and printing quality of the paper for reading accuracy, unlike the problem that the barcode is prone to deformation and breakage, which is unrecognizable. In addition, RFID tags can be developed into smaller and more diverse forms for use in different products.
But in fact, although the current low frequency band and high frequency band have been widely used in China, such as campus cards, ID cards, mobile phone NFC modules, etc.; but in the consumer field (generally the application of UHF RFID electronic tags), barcodes ( One-dimensional, two-dimensional) can basically meet the description ability of a single item and has a mature supporting system when it is promoted. RFID tags cannot replace barcodes.
There are several major challenges in terms of popularity:
1. Cost
Although the cost of RFID tags, readers, and software has been declining, the cost of RFID deployment is still unaffordable for many companies that want to track product inventory. At present, the application of RFID technology is almost all upstream investment and downstream benefit, which greatly damages the enthusiasm of upstream enterprises investing in RFID technology. Especially in countries where labor costs are relatively low, many companies will choose to increase employee deployment rather than transforming the system.
Specifically, companies need to affix printed RFID tags to each item that needs to be identified, and also need to be equipped with relevant identification devices such as channel machines, handheld devices, and the like. In addition, enterprises need to integrate RFID with the original ERP system, and the business process will be more complicated than before, and production, transportation and warehousing should be coordinated. Therefore, the cost of investing in the early stage of RFID deployment is relatively high, and it requires a certain amount of power and courage to advance.
2. Technical standards are difficult to unify
For the technical standards of RFID, it is difficult to be unified at the international level, which makes the product development and application positioning more chaotic. The mainstream technical standards are trying to continuously strengthen their influence in the promotion. Especially, the future promotion of RFID technology in China has appeared. The ISO/IEC, EPCGlobal, UID, AIM-global, and IP-X organizations are responsible for or almost the same time leaders in Beijing and China's RFID field are involved in the situation, trying to strengthen their own RFID technology field through China's joining. International leadership. For China, it is also actively pursuing its own technical standards to protect its own technical, economic and security interests. Therefore, the unification of RFID technology standards has a problem of promoting bottlenecks.
3, the reading accuracy needs to be improved
Data integrity and correctness are important factors in determining the performance of an RFID system. When multiple tags simultaneously send data to the reader or a reader is within the scope of another reader in the scope of the reader, the signals interfere with each other, resulting in reading. The data received by the device is incorrect, that is, the label cannot be completely recognized, or the wrong label is recognized. Therefore, multi-target recognition is not only the biggest advantage of RFID, but also a technical difficulty that needs to be solved urgently.
Although as early as 2009, American Apparel claimed that its single item RFID inventory management system can provide 99% of store inventory visibility, but in reality, misinterpretation caused by algorithmic reasons, personnel problems and process problems still It is a stumbling block on the road of RFID technology popularization. According to media reports, in the experience of “unmanned retail storesâ€, there are also two items that can be identified, one can only be identified, and the metal cans cannot be identified because the paste is too tight.
Third, RFID application caseOverall, the main markets for domestic RFID applications are in the areas of identification, traffic management, military and security, asset management, and logistics and warehousing. And in the application of RFID in foreign countries, the absolute main force of retail and transportation logistics. The sum of the two is about 40% of the entire market. Garment applications have been fully deployed in apparel and retail outlets such as Wal-Mart, Metro and Zara.
Due to cost considerations, although many RFID tags are produced domestically, their application in the consumer field is more common in foreign companies. Typical cases such as Decathlon, which use RFID tags in stores worldwide and more than 85% of products. In the domestic consumer sector, in addition to the “unmanned retail stores†full of gimmicks, some companies in the apparel industry have begun to try to use this technology.
In 2014, Haicang House officially launched the research and development of RFID flow reading system, and selected three companies as the label suppliers of Haishuo House RFID flow reading system. Haishu House provides SKU information such as product number, color number, specification, quantity, etc. to the selected RFID label supplier. The RFID label supplier is responsible for writing this information to the chip and sending it to the clothing manufacturer, and then the clothing manufacturer. Attach the tag with the RFID tag to the garment. In 2017, Haicang House held a tender for RFID electronic label suppliers, and the scale of electronic label procurement projects reached 150 million.
In summary, in the consumer field, the current use of RFID tags is limited to logistics and sales, and there are fewer applications in production; large companies and entrepreneurial companies have strong driving force, and small and medium-sized companies and companies with more intermediate links have weaker willingness to promote. .
In the long run, with the decline in the cost of RFID tags, rising labor costs, and the unification of international standards, RFID tags can replace bar codes in more fields. At the same time, it can be expected that the first action must be the leading company in the industry (it takes 3-5 years from the start of testing to the first) and gradually spread to SMEs in the industry.
In terms of related suppliers, in the initial stage, users are more inclined to hire smaller RFID R&D companies for preliminary experiments. However, as RFID applications become more widespread, large companies will switch to large, more well-known business technology partners because they Good software and hardware development capabilities have long been available. ABIResearch predicts that although AveryDennison, TI, Philips, Zebra, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and other big companies are not RFID-based business, but will be the biggest winner in the RFID wave, the existing RFID-based Small companies are hard to be their opponents. But because these big companies aren't the best at RFID, they will partner with small companies that specialize in RFID, and even buy and acquire to get higher technology as soon as possible.
In the short term, “unmanned retail stores†are still hard to become the next explosion point of RFID technology, but it is a new attempt of RFID technology in the field of consumer retail. Of course, RFID technology is just one of the many reasons for the “unmanned retail store†to attract attention. The value of this new retail form is also the collection of big data for offline consumer spending. Overall, unmanned retail stores are still in the early stages of technological exploration, and it is too early to be truly unattended. In the "completely closed glass" construction of the fruit box experience store, in the past few days in Shanghai, the general temperature of 35 degrees, the indoor temperature is as high as 40 degrees, only "due to technical debugging, temporarily suspended." Therefore, compared to "unmanned retail stores," RFID chips may be the first to appear in our closet.
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