Asset Vue has partnered with Powercast Company, supplier of each off-the-shelf and bespoke wi-fi charging programs, to adapt Powercast’s RFID-powered, wire-and-battery-free sensor situation monitoring system to knowledge heart necessities.
A finalist within the RFID Journal 2025 Finest New Product Awards, Powercast’s RFID sensing know-how is famend for permitting maintenance-free monitoring as a result of it may well run constantly on industry-standard RAIN RFID stock readers fairly than wires and batteries. At this week’s RFID Journal LIVE! present in Las Vegas, Nevada, from Might 6–8, Powercast’s know-how might be on show in sales space #615; on Might 8, the winners of the awards might be revealed.
Any object with an RFID tag may be linked to the web utilizing RAIN RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) know-how, which makes use of RFID readers present in retail, logistics, and stock administration purposes to allow customers to find and determine all of those merchandise. These RFID tags may be enhanced past identification by including Powercast’s wi-fi RF-energy-harvesting chips and sensors (temperature, humidity, mild, and so on.). This permits for real-time sensible monitoring, which ends up in smarter provide chains that may find reside shipments, monitor the situation of perishable items, and extra—all with out the necessity for wires or batteries.
Charles Greene, Ph.D., COO and CTO of Powercast, acknowledged, “Asset Vue needed a reasonable, maintenance-free asset monitoring system for its knowledge heart that did not require sensors to be hardwired or ongoing battery upkeep.” “They knew our know-how did that, in order that they requested us to customise a system for them; particularly, they wanted exact monitoring of maximum temperature and humidity to forestall failure of mission-critical gear they retailer on metallic server racks, and the power to rapidly find tagged gadgets on these crowded racks.”
When customisation is required, Powercast provides engineering and productization providers. “We have already got a ‘Discover Tag’ function with LEDs to simply find gear, however we modified our know-how to satisfy Asset Vue’s different wants,” Greene acknowledged. “We began by slicing our RFID tags in half to extend airflow on the server racks and preserve the gear cool. Second, we modified our RF reception antenna to cut back interference from metallic as a result of metallic can weaken an RF sign and server racks are composed of metallic. Powercast intends to launch the know-how later this 12 months, and it’s presently present process beta testing at Asset Vue.
Commonplace RAIN RFID readers can be utilized rather than Powercast’s RF wi-fi energy transmitters as a result of they emit an RF sign that’s much like the transmitters’. This eliminates the necessity and expense of hardwiring sensors, sustaining batteries, or putting in customized readers or RF transmitters. As an alternative, the readers can function the supply of wi-fi energy that constantly powers the sensor tags with out the necessity for wires or batteries.
RF and knowledge transmitted over the air from any RFID reader inside vary—as much as 40 meters, relying on the applying – are harvested by Powercast’s Powerharvester PCC110 receiver chip, which is built-in contained in the RFID sensor tags. So long as they’re inside vary, a number of tags unfold throughout a large area may be powered concurrently by a single RFID reader. Readers may be cell gadgets utilized by workers members or stationary infrastructure mounted within the ceiling.
After that, the Powerharvester chip transforms the RF into helpful DC in order that the tags could also be powered and knowledge may be communicated. Energy is provided to a microprocessor and sensors, which then measure the surroundings and relay the outcomes to the reader.
The RFID sensor tags are straightforward to place anyplace due to their peel-back adhesive on the backs.
