The Tedium of Identifying Yourself
If you’ve ever traveled through airport customs before, you are probably used to being buried in numerous forms questioning your stay in foreign soil. I’ve found these forms to be tremendously tedious — having to fill in name, phone number, date of birth, and so on repetitively. After coming across these many times throughout my lifetime, it became a boring, yet necessary routine.
Or imagine standardized testing. I’m sure many of you have taken either the College Board’s Scholastic Assessment Tests (SATs) or the ACTs. For those of you bright minds out there, even the College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) exams have similar protocols. Before you start digging into the problems, you are expected to completely fill and bubble in your full first and last name along with many other survey questions and questionably useless information. This introductory info largely encompasses identifying yourself so that your identity is linked to your answers.
Instead of tiring your hands out with very menial work of completing your identity, it would be nice to have an electronic "barcode" with your information stored in it. Wouldn’t that just be great? All you have to do is to approach a barcode reader and your information is there. Today, we see widespread use of that, especially in western culture. Limited identity and account information is stored in plastic credit cards. Universities and companies store access and identity information in scannable badges. The examples I’ve mentioned above largely deal with barcodes and magnetic strips. But why not get rid of even the act of physically scanning the card?
Enter RFID.
Radio Frequency ID, or RFID for short, has already seen a fairly prominent use throughout mainstream society. Essentially, RFID is a small tag that can transmit wireless signals given proper power input. If you live in the United States, you will more than likely come across an RFID in use several times a week. Some common uses include Tracking and maintaining books in libraries, transfer of identity information within country passports and transfer of payment in toll booths in major cities. They are, in fact, quite handy — I was particularly amazed when I was in Chicago. A fellow forum staff member was driving with me on the interstate when we approached a toll booth. Instead of stopping and scanning a keychain, let alone drop quarters into a barrel, he drove straight through an open lane. Apparently, a small box located on his dashboard transferred a small amount of payment when passed through a radio frequency field. Sweet.
Then, there is automatic identification of individual people. PC Mechanic Editor Force Flow reviewed implementation of RFID tags into people in a Kudos & Calamities column a while back. Certainly, this is sophisticated technology, yet it’s scary to think that there is a permanent "HELLO, MY NAME IS" tag attached to you.
Of course, there are many more uses for RFID — like in simple business inventory to keep track of packages. Even though it’s used for such straightforward, intuitive processes, a simple technology could go a long way.
RFID in a new world
These are very neat applications of innovative technology. But this next potential use transforms RFID into a whole new world — quite literally. The United States NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) plans to test and conceptually use the RFID technology in outer space. Keep in mind what RFID stands for — Radio Frequency Identification. With the lack of our natural environment here on Earth, it could become a challenge to properly work RFID outside of its normal working space. NASA plans to send numerous passive (ie. Non-self-powered) plastic and paper RFID tags to the International Space Station via the US Space Shuttle, Endeavor.
Once at the International Space Station, the tags will be attached outside of the station and exposed to extreme atmospheric conditions. The RFID tags will need to be able to survive, among other conditions, extreme heat, extreme cold, and ultraviolet rays. According to Fred Schramm, an internal research and development administrator for NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, a successful initial test at the Space Station will result in further evaluation on a rocket set to launch in twenty seven months.
Potential uses for RFID in space are widespread. Chief among them is of course improved inventory control and cutting down on potential mistakes. Astronauts are largely in space to make various qualitative observations. Cutting down quantitative observations to automatic procedures, like RFID technology, would improve accuracy and eventually boost efficiency in the arena of aeronautic and space research. Schramm perceives a potential use as gauging external conditions throughout outer space. But in the end, Schramm envisions that this research will, in the end, greatly contribute to society. According to an RFID Journal Preview, Schramm particularly hopes that RFID technology can be applied to anti-counterfeiting efforts.
My Take:
The widespread use of RFID comes as no surprise when you take a look at the larger recent trends of technology. What used to be a tedious process of filling out forms and manually inputting written information into a database is solved through a very pain-free process. When traveling through international customs, you could get in the fast lane by allowing the officer to scan your chip instead of writing all the information down. Or you could look at the abundant uses beyond that.
As for space research, I imagine this would be a small footnote in space history. However, in the overall scope of converging technologies, this will likely be a very substantial leap. NASA has a tremendous amount of funding and research power — whatever it decides to leap on, it is capable of making a splash in the field. For a converging technology like RFID, to fall into that realm would definitely tell us more about what further uses of the technology are possible. Schramm’s vision is a perfect example of such — given time, RFID could possibly counter-act counterfeiters. But in the larger picture, NASA’s project with RFID certainly immerses the world into a void of unknown. In the end, knowledge will lead to innovations.
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