France has become a pioneer in the development of cost-effective RFID technology thanks to Camille Ramade and her colleagues at the University of Montpellier.
Camille Ramade and colleagues have developed an innovative RFID depositing process that could reduce the cost of RFID technology by up to 80%. This reduction in cost may lead to the growth of the technology’s popularity. Unfortunately, adoption of RFID has been slow due to high implementation costs. Despite developments in the technology, significant ROI potential, and significant decrease in cost since its naissance, 1D and 2D barcodes have remained the popular choices in lieu of RFID technology. Recent developments by the University of Montpellier, however, may level the playing field for RFID and persuade many industries to turn to the technology.
The University of Montpellier has developed a process to deposit thin aluminum RFID tags onto paper, reducing the amount of metal required. As a result, the use of RFID technology will open up to numerous application possibilities. Speculators predict that this new process will potentially lower the cost of RFID tags to one-fifth of their current price.
By employing a simple thermal evaporation process, Camille Ramade and colleagues discovered that thin aluminum coil antennas could be deposited onto paper to be used as RFID tags. Current prototypes are functional, but further development and designs are being conducted so that the tags can be optimized for each family of RFID chips. These tags could potentially be used to even track individual sheets of paper and speculation is that they might replace both 1D barcodes and even QR codes.
