[LINK] Cisco, and the decade of the (rfid) sensor

[Geoffrey Ramadan]

Stephen

This is only just the start of it.

You wait till IEEE802.15.4 and Zigbee/Mesh Networking take off.

With these low cost, low power radios and mesh networking, your Parking 
meters* will talk to each other... and provided you can communicate with 
ONE you will be able to talk to them ALL.

* substitute "Parking meter" with Utility Meter, A/C systems, vehicles, 
temp sensors, industrial sensors, water sensors, wireless switches, 
"assets of interest"... and probably people.

Reg
Geoffrey Ramadan B.E.(Elec)
Chairman, Automatic Data Capture Association (www.adca.com.au)
and
Managing Director, Unique Micro Design (www.umd.com.au)


stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:
> Cisco jumps into wireless sensor market:
>
> By Ephraim Schwartz
> May 21, 2007
>
> <http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/05/21/Cisco-jumps-into-wireless-
> sensor-market_1.html?source=NLC-TB&cgd=2007-05-22>
>
>  At Interop, the high tech industry's major networking conference, a 
> little-noticed partnership announcement between WhereNet, designers of 
> active RFID location systems, and Cisco may be far more significant than 
> anyone realizes.
>
> The WhereNet RFID tags work in dual mode, sending either the industry 
> standard ISO 24730 transmission signal which is read by WhereNet's Real-
> Time Locating System (RTLS) architecture or IEEE 802.11b signal which can 
> be read by Cisco Wi-Fi access points.
>
> Active RFID chips, as opposed to passive chips, send a signal out to 
> readers rather than having to be woken up by a reader, at which point the 
> information is uploaded.
>
> In essence, an upgrade to Cisco software, Release 4.1 for the Cisco 
> Unified Wireless Network, available this week, gives Cisco WLANs the 
> ability to format and read data generated by sensors.
>
> The immediate benefit will be seen in that a special antenna to hear the 
> signal from tag is no longer needed. 
>
> Instead, the WhereNet tag can use the existing Wi-Fi access points that 
> are already in place. 
>
> This in turn lowers the cost of an implementation and gives users a 
> broader area of location visibility, according to Dan Doles, vice 
> president and general manager, WhereNet Business Unit, Zebra Technologies.
>
> Before the integration of the two technologies, a dedicated, proprietary 
> network was needed to read sensor data, said Ben Gibson, director of 
> mobility solutions at Cisco. 
>
> Now the same infrastructure, a single Wi-Fi network platform, can be used 
> to host and manage sensor data.
>
> Using an open API, Cisco can take the telemetry data and export it into a 
> host of different business applications for analysis.
>
> "Business mobility isn't just about laptops and VOIP, it is also about 
> process optimization and asset tracking," said Gibson.
>
> And this is where the long-term and far reaching benefits of the 
> announcement this week comes from, according to Josh Greenbaum, principal 
> at Enterprise Applications Consulting.
>
> Sensors represent a huge, unstructured, non-relational data source 
> understood in manufacturing but relatively unknown outside of it.
>
> "Anything that is enabling the collection of sensor data is enabling the 
> next revolution in information management," Greenbaum said.
>
> However, the trick, said Greenbaum, is going to be where Cisco goes with 
> this. Most sensor-based applications are vertical and industry specific.
>
> The question is whether or not Cisco can turn this horizontal knowledge 
> into specific vertical markets.
>
> Examples include putting sensors on hospital equipment, such as a 
> dialysis machine to know whether it is clean or dirty, outdoors where a 
> sensor might read temperature, or on pharmaceutical products where the 
> humidity and temperature may play a key role in the products viability.
>
> Nevertheless, the agreement with WhereNet, whose active RFID-based 
> solutions are focused on asset tracking and location, is only the opening 
> round of what one industry expert said will become the decade of the 
> sensor. 
>
> If that is true, Cisco's relatively early entry in the sensor industry 
> was a brilliant strategic move.
>
> For its part, WhereNet is partnering with a company that can raise its 
> profile with many major companies where tracking of assets and the 
> deployment of RFID is quickly becoming a key component of their supply 
> chain.
>
> WhereNet tags will be priced at $55 and available in August.
>
> Ephraim Schwartz is editor at large at InfoWorld.
> --
>
> Cheers all ..
> Stephen Loosley
> Victoria, Australia
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