A new entrant to the passive RFID market today unveiled a system it claims can provide the read ranges and applications typical of active RFID equipment via lower-cost passive technology. Mojix, which had operated in stealth mode since its founding in 2004, will demonstrate its STAR (Space Time Array Reader) system later this week at the RFID Journal Live show in Las Vegas.
Mojix claims the STAR system, which works with EPCglobal Gen 2 passive RFID tags, can provide 20 times the read range (up to 600 feet), and 100 times the coverage area (up to 250,000 square feet) of conventional passive RFID equipment, for applications including presence detection and location tracking, authentication, asset tracking within the supply chain, and security scenarios.
The Mojix product uses advanced digital signal processing technology derived from deep space communications applications first developed at NASA, where the company’s CEO, Ramin Sadr, worked prior to founding Mojix.
“Current RFID systems evolved from bar code readers, which are reliable, well-understood, and well-managed by WMS systems. But the technology is based on a fixed portal limited to a coverage area of about 2,500 square feet,” according to Kevin Duffy, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Mojix. The Mojix system “is designed not as a portal, but to provide a ubiquitous view of a three-dimensional volume of space,” Duffy said in a briefing with Managing Automation.