EU project to launch five RFID pilot tests

Following a year of research and development, the EU-funded BRIDGE project is now preparing five pilots to test Electronic Product Code (EPC) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies.

The pilots, scheduled to start in September, will test RFID across several sectors of industry including retail, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, distribution and logistics, and services.

The Electronic Product Code (EPC) is a family of coding schemes created to succeed the bar code. It was created as a low-cost method of tracking goods using RFID technology. RFID is a method of identifying unique items using radio waves. Typically, a reader communicates with a tag, which holds digital information in a microchip.

BRIDGE (Building Radio frequency IDentification solutions for the Global Environment) is a three-year €7.5 million project funded under the EU's Sixth Framework Programme (FP6). It is made up of a consortium of 30 partners from the worlds of industry and research.

BRIDGE was created to research, develop and implement tools enabling RFID and EPCglobal applications, as well as to drive the acceptance of EPCglobal standards in Europe.

The first pilot to go live will test the use of EPC second-generation technology to track pallets of pharmaceutical products as they move through the supply chain, from the manufacturers through distributor networks and on to hospitals and pharmacies.

"The purpose of the pilot is to use RFID to know where the goods come from, and where they are at any given moment," said Henri Barthel, the coordinator of the BRIDGE project. "With RFID, the idea is that the technology can help companies manage the supply chain in a much more accurate and efficient manner."

The pilot will aim to trace a number of products, identified at the carton and pallet levels using EPC RFID tags and 2-D bar-code labels. According to the organisers, deploying this 'hybrid environment' of RFID and bar-coding will afford them the chance to discover the pros and cons of each technology. In addition to RFID tags and 2-D bar-code labels, the pilot will incorporate a network-based system allowing the participants in the project to store, access and analyse all data collected during the experiment.

Ultimately, the objective of the pilot will be to increase the safety of patients by improving the traceability of pharmaceutical products and certifying the pedigree or authenticity of these as they move from the manufacturer to the final user.

Another pilot will be in the retail sector where BRIDGE will test the use of second generation EPC RFID to track cartons and pallets of clothing from the point of manufacture to the store. The pilot will track the goods as they move across the supply chain, but could also include novel in-store applications such as using RFID tags to identify individual garments, and installing RFID interrogators in dressing rooms so shoppers could obtain detailed product information about the items they are trying on, such as sizes, prices and availability.

Lastly, three more similar pilots will take place in food manufacturing processes, reusable assets and products in-service. The results of all five pilots will be made available by the project as it seeks to promote the uptake of standardised EPC and RFID technology for use in global supply chains.

"Since its inception, RFID has been hailed as the panacea for a more sophisticated and efficient global supply chain," said Mr Barthel. "The BRIDGE project will transform RFID from being an identification technology into providing an EPCglobal based product information network."

For further information, please visit:
http://www.bridge-project.eu

Copyright ©European Communities, 2007
Neither the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, nor any person acting on its behalf, is responsible for the use, which might be made of the attached information. The attached information is drawn from the Community R&D Information Service (CORDIS). The CORDIS services are carried on the CORDIS Host in Luxembourg - http://cordis.europa.eu. Access to CORDIS is currently available free-of-charge.

Most Popular Now

Giving Doctors an AI-Powered Head Start …

Detection of melanoma and a range of other skin diseases will be faster and more accurate with a new artificial intelligence (AI) powered tool that analyses multiple imaging types simultaneously...

AI Agents for Oncology

Clinical decision-making in oncology is challenging and requires the analysis of various data types - from medical imaging and genetic information to patient records and treatment guidelines. To effectively support...

AI Medical Receptionist Modernizing Doct…

A virtual medical receptionist named "Cassie," developed through research at Texas A&M University, is transforming the way patients interact with health care providers. Cassie is a digital-human assistant created by Humanate...

Using Data and AI to Create Better Healt…

Academic medical centers could transform patient care by adopting principles from learning health systems principles, according to researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine and the University of California, San Diego. In...

AI Tool Set to Transform Characterisatio…

A multinational team of researchers, co-led by the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, has developed and tested a new AI tool to better characterise the diversity of individual cells within...

AI Detects Hidden Heart Disease Using Ex…

Mass General Brigham researchers have developed a new AI tool in collaboration with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to probe through previously collected CT scans and identify...

Human-AI Collectives Make the Most Accur…

Diagnostic errors are among the most serious problems in everyday medical practice. AI systems - especially large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT-4, Gemini, or Claude 3 - offer new ways...

Northern Ireland Completes Nationwide Ro…

Go-lives at Western and Southern health and social care trusts mean every pathology service is using the same laboratory information management system; improving efficiency and quality. An ambitious technology project to...

Highland Marketing Announced as Official…

Highland Marketing has been named, for the second year running, the official communications partner for HETT Show 2025, the UK's leading digital health conference and exhibition. Taking place 7-8 October...

MHP-Net: A Revolutionary AI Model for Ac…

Liver cancer is the sixth most common cancer globally and a leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Accurate segmentation of liver tumors is a crucial step for the management of the...

Groundbreaking TACIT Algorithm Offers Ne…

Researchers at VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center have developed a novel algorithm that could provide a revolutionary tool for determining the best options for patients - both in the treatment...

The Many Ways that AI Enters Rheumatolog…

High-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) is the standard to diagnose and assess progression in interstitial lung disease (ILD), a key feature in systemic sclerosis (SSc). But AI-assisted interpretation has the potential...