Progress of the hottest smart label technology and

The progress of smart label technology and its impact on packaging technology

Abstract: in recent years, the automatic identification technology of goods has been rapidly popularized and popularized in many service fields, production fields, circulation fields, including the field of packaging technology. Among them, non-contact RFID technology, namely smart tag technology, will gradually replace bar code and become the dominant automatic identification technology in the future

in recent years, the automatic identification technology of goods has been rapidly popularized and promoted in many service fields, production fields, circulation fields, including the field of packaging technology. Among them, non-contact RFID technology, namely smart tag technology, will gradually replace bar code and become the dominant automatic identification technology in the future

1 introduction to automatic recognition technology

automatic recognition technology has gradually developed into an independent interdisciplinary professional field in recent years. This field is different from any discipline. It integrates the technologies of different professional fields, such as telecommunications, manufacturing technology, cryptography, semiconductor technology, electromagnetic technology, high-frequency technology and many other professional application fields. In terms of methods, automatic recognition technology can be roughly divided into five methods: bar code recognition, optical recognition, IC card recognition, biometric recognition and radio frequency recognition. Table 1 shows the comparison of several methods [1]. At present, radio frequency identification, that is, smart tag technology, has broad prospects in various fields, especially in the application of packaging technology

2 overview of the development of smart tag technology at home and abroad

smart tag technology, also known as radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, has developed rapidly abroad. There are many kinds of RFID products, such as Texas Instruments, Motorola motoro1a, Philip Phillips, Hitachi Hitachi, Microsoft Microsoft and other world-famous manufacturers produce smart tag products, and their products have their own characteristics and series. RFID technology is widely used in many fields, such as industrial automation, commercial automation, logistics control and management: automobile, train and other traffic monitoring; Automatic toll collection system of expressway; Parking lot management system; Goods management; Assembly line production automation; Safety access inspection; Vehicle anti-theft and so on. The application of RFID covers almost all fields. For example, Australia has used its RFID products in the baggage management of passengers at Australian airports and played an excellent role. The European Community announced that the new vehicle model produced in 1997 must have an anti-theft system based on RFID technology. The Swiss National Railway Administration installed RFID automatic identification system on all passenger trains in Switzerland. Dispatchers can master the train operation in real time, which is not only conducive to management, but also greatly reduce the possibility of accidents. In January, 1996, South Korea installed RFID system on 600 buses in Seoul for electronic monthly tickets. It also plans to extend this system to railways and other cities. Lufthansa tried non-contact RF card as air tickets, which changed the traditional way of ticket purchase and sale and simplified the procedures of airport entry. BMW applied RF identification system smart tag to the production process control of automobile production line, Motoro1a company uses RFID system to control the flow direction of parts in the assembly line in the ultra clean workshop. In January, 2004, the Ministry of economy, trade and industry of Japan carried out the practical testing of RFID tags in four industries, including clothing and books, in order to find out the problems that need to be solved urgently. At the same time, the "response project" aimed at reducing the unit price of RFID tags to less than 5 yen will be implemented in April 2004

according to relevant authoritative data, the sales volume of RFID products in the world was 9.9 million sets in 1993, soared to 20.3 million sets in 1994, and the sales volume of relevant products was 98.1 million sets in 1997, while the sales volume of RF products worldwide was 0.1 million sets in 1989 US $8.1 billion, compared with us $1.2 billion in 1992 Self adhesive rubber asphalt waterproof membrane jc840 ⑴ US $999.41 billion, US $433 million in 1997, and US $6.6 billion in 1999 US $8.5 billion, of which the annual average growth rate of the sales of Shepo recognition products in the world from 1992 to 1999 was 25.5% 3 %。 Thus, RFID technology has broad market prospects

the gold card project implementation plan formulated by the Chinese government in 1993 and the 10-year plan for the nationwide financial card network system are major national projects aimed at accelerating the informatization process of China's national economy. Therefore, the development and application of various automatic recognition technologies are very rapid. Now, as an emerging automatic identification technology, radio frequency identification technology will also be popularized in China soon. It can be said that the market of radio frequency identification products in China is very huge. The automatic toll collection system of non-stop highway using radio frequency identification technology is the future development direction, and the parking toll collection method of manual toll collection, including IC card, will eventually be eliminated. With the development of economic exchanges and tourism, the development momentum of China's highways is very strong, and the demand for automatic toll collection system will increase day by day. China has a large land area, many roads and many vehicles, and it is expected that there will be a demand of billions of yuan in the next 10 years

several domestic companies are introducing foreign advanced technology and developing their own RFID systems. At present, contactless RF card automatic toll collection has been applied on individual highways, electronic monthly tickets have been used on buses in Shanghai, RFID systems have also been used on airport highways in Beijing, Huanggang port in Shenzhen, etc. Only a part of RFID technology applications are listed here, but they are feasible and very efficient. It is no exaggeration to predict that if any application becomes a reality, it will breed a huge market. RFID based smart tags will be a new economic growth point in the future

3 smart tag standard problems and price

at present, there is no unified international standard and national standard for smart tags, and the price of smart tags is relatively high (about 2 yuan). The key is that the international standard of smart tags will reduce the price. In order to achieve this goal, Japan will begin to implement the "response project" in 2004

one of the purposes of the Japanese response project is to reduce the unit price of smart tags to less than 5 yen. About 100 related enterprises will be convened to form an alliance to develop technologies that can produce low-cost IC chips and antennas. The Japanese unified specification scheme for smart labels will be formulated in the response project. In order to formulate the specification scheme, dozens of top technicians in Japan have been convened. With regard to the formulation of the specification scheme of smart tags, UHF band is prepared to be used in wireless frequencies. At present, the frequency bands that smart tags can use include 135KHz frequency band and 13 56mhz band and 2 There are 3 kinds of 45ghz bands. On this basis, the UHF frequency band (around 950mhz) will be allocated to smart tags in the second half of 2004. The UHF frequency band has a longer communication distance than other frequencies. Another feature of it is that even if the object commodity is on the other side of obstacles such as metal, there are still certain electric waves that can be bypassed. It is suitable for the management of goods such as warehouses, and it is also easy to be used in the field of international logistics

there are two kinds of standard specifications for smart tags. One is the commodity code, and the other is the wireless interface between the reader/writer and the electronic smart tag. Among them, the commodity code is not a big problem. EPC (electronic product code) developed by American EPCglobal (formerly American automatic ID Center) may become the industry standard. The problem is the wireless interface

at present, two groups are mainly responsible for the formulation of wireless interface standards. They are American EPCglobal and ISO. In terms of UHF band, the two groups are currently promoting the formulation of standards for two specifications respectively, and all four specifications are incompatible with each other. If this goes on, I'm afraid there will be many specifications coexisting

in terms of supply chain management and traceable systems, it is necessary to avoid the coexistence of multiple specifications. Only when smart tags are put into use across national borders, industries and enterprises, can they exert their real power. If multiple specifications coexist, enterprise users must prepare multiple readers and writers. This is uneconomical in cost

the main reason why the existing standardization groups do not have unified specifications is that foreign enterprises that have begun to provide UHF band products have begun to adopt new specifications. From this point of view, enterprises in China, Japan and other Asian countries that have not yet launched products are easier to unify specifications. Japan is ready to formulate Japanese unified specifications in the response project, and is ready to persuade EPCglobal and ISO to adopt them as unified specifications

Japan has long been ahead of other countries in the application of internal smart tags in systems such as automatic settlement of rotating sushi and sorting inspection of home distribution. In other words, Japanese domestic manufacturers have the experience and technology to provide smart label solutions. Using the new unified specification of UHF band, Japanese manufacturers will certainly be able to improve their international competitiveness

as a smart tag, many problems cannot be found in time if it is not put into practical application. It is from this perspective that Japan is preparing to conduct empirical tests in four industries, including household appliances, clothing, books and food circulation. The purpose is to find out the technical and application topics in their respective introduction sites

in all empirical tests in the four industries, it is planned to use 13 56ghz band and UHF band. Although UHF band has the characteristics of long distance from jiansansha international cargo transit center to carry out international transit business, it may cause unexpected situations in the settlement processing of stores. That is to say, it is possible to read the goods on the nearby checkout counter. In terms of similar uses, it will be discussed whether it is still necessary to use 13 56mhz band. China's Fudan University and other scientific research institutions and development companies, in cooperation with the China article coding center, are preparing the draft of China's standards. China's smart tags are expected to form a discussion draft as early as the end of this year

4 impact of smart tag technology on packaging technology

smart tag technology based on RFID is in its infancy in China, but its development potential is huge, and it will first be applied to the field of packaging technology, and will change the traditional packaging technology using bar code. In the information society, the acquisition and processing of various information are required to be fast and accurate. In the near future, smart label technology will make packaging technology information-based and management efficient

1) it will change the traditional bar code marking machine, labeling machine and reading and writing equipment. The traditional barcode equipment mentioned above will be changed into the manufacturing, pasting, reading and writing equipment of smart labels

2) improve the efficiency of packaging finished products management. Because RFID can monitor the finished packaging products from a long distance and almost in real time, the efficiency of the management of packaging products has improved to a new level in the relationship between China and Mongolia

3) extend the concept of packaging, that is, in addition to protecting products, facilitating transportation, beauty and other functions, packaging also needs to make general product information and multimedia information required for sales before pasting smart labels

5 conclusion

smart tag technology is a new technology with broad application market. The United States, Japan and Europe have made great efforts in research and development in this field and have a long history of practice. In contrast, China needs to catch up with the management and standardization of RFID based smart tag applications, otherwise many manufacturers will go their own way, and unified management will be very difficult. At present, the international standards of RFID have not been completed, and there are only some industry standards. China should increase research and development investment in this field and formulate feasible national standards as soon as possible. The packaging industry should actively participate in the formulation and trial use of standards, actively prepare for the integration of packaging technology with the world and ensure the system of our country