Indisputable Key

WP4 - Forest RFID system

Recent technological developments and market penetration of UHF RFID technology, makes it a good candidate for the technological platform of a forest traceability system. The objective of WP4 (Forest RFID system) is to specify, analyse and develop a coherent, integrated RFID system suitable for automatically applied wood tracking purposes.
WP4 (Forest RFID system) will develop and produce prototypes of forest RFID transponders which can be mounted on all surfaces, but are specially optimised for different stages of the wood-forestry chain, i.e. logs, boards and packages. This requires new antenna solutions with low detuning sensitivity, and an appropriate construction for automatic applicability on logs. A new wood-like transponder matrix material, protecting the transponder inlay, will be developed which can be tolerated in pulping processes.
The overall transponder design must be suitable for a cheap manufacturing process to meet the target price of 10 - 20 cents in the near future. Nanoparticle inks applied by printing techniques will be studied as a means to further reduce the transponder price. WP4 (Forest RFID system) will develop and produce an RFID reader prototype for use in forest harvester, forwarder and truck.
The key properties of a reader integrated to a harvester are small unit size, water resistance, effective vibration isolation and robust application specific antenna solutions. Commercial RFID readers are very susceptible to environmental disturbances, like reflection by nearby objects, which are frequent at the forest environment.
Therefore a new reader solution with an adaptable RF-front-end, necessary to maintain a high dynamic range and good readability will be developed. Although dense reader situations are not very likely to occur they need to be considered in the technical design.
WP4 (Forest RFID system) will also develop a high-efficiency transponder applicator integrated to a harvester for automatic application of transponders to logs. High-efficiency is imperative in order not to compromise the performance of the harvester.
The operation of the total traceability system will be thoroughly tested under actual service conditions.

The major connections of WP4 (Forest RFID system) to other work packages include:
• WP2 (Standards and Architectures) will set up requirements and guidelines for communication and for the system architecture. The effect of these specifications on WP4 (Forest RFID system) will be considered in detail to guarantee compliance with the overall plans.
• The operation and possible interconnections of the RFID and the log coding (WP5 - Wood object coding/decoding and object data communication systems) systems will be considered and the implementation of an RFID-reader and the log coding system on harvester will be coordinated.
• Close co-operation with WP6 (Software Modules for Integration) is needed to specify and implement the interfaces between the RFID hardware and the software modules and to analyse the exploitation potential and impacts of the IAD-concept and the traceability system on operation of the wood-forestry chain. The total system verification involving RFID hardware and the software modules as well as the demonstration activities are carried out in close collaboration between WP4 (Forest RFID system) and WP6 (Software Modules for Integration).
• The role and tasks of WP4 (Forest RFID system) and the RFID system verification in the integrated demonstration will be coordinated together with WP8 (Demonstration of systems and benefits).