Intermec's Intellitag Technology Meets New Tire Tracking Standard

    EVERETT, Wash.--Aug. 28, 2001--Intermec Technologies Corp.'s Intellitag(R) RFID (radio frequency identification) technology supports a newly developed standard that will help automakers and tire manufacturers track tires before they ever hit the road.
    Automobile and tire manufacturers, commercial vehicle owners and consumers stand to benefit from a new, soon-to-be-released, RFID item-level tracking standard under development by the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG). The technology will greatly speed and simplify verification of tire warranty, authenticity and performance. It is the world's first application standard addressing item-level identification using RFID.
    The new standard, called B-11, is the subject of an address by Bill Hoffman, Intermec's Manager of Automotive Business Development, slated for 2:00 PM today on "RF Tire Identification and Traceability" at AUTO-TECH, AIAG's annual conference and exhibition held at Detroit's Cobo Center. Last October, the American National Standards Institute's materials handling group, ANSI MH10.8.4, voted on the air interface portion of its draft standards. This June, AIAG conducted a technical demonstration to evaluate RFID technologies, and in July, AIAG's Tire & Wheel Identification Work Group selected MH10.8.4's air interface to meet their application requirements. Air interface refers to the way RFID interrogators interact with the computer chips on tags.
    Placed on the inside of the vehicle's tires by the tire manufacturers, the UHF-based, 128 byte, read/write RFID tag provides the ability to associate that tire with a specific vehicle. Along with the unique tag ID, a 12-character coding structure called the DOT (Department of Transportation) number will be written to each RFID tag by the tire manufacturer. The DOT code identifies the manufacturing plant, tire size, the unique components of the tire, and the week and year the tire was manufactured. Congress's recently passed Transportation Recall Enactment, Accountability and Documentation (TREAD) Act supports this effort and updates tire safety standards.
    "Intermec has been working with the major U.S automakers and tire suppliers for some time to develop an RFID product to provide a permanent and unique identity for each tire that goes on a vehicle," said Eric Freeburg, a Detroit-area auto industry executive with Intermec and a member of the AIAG committee. "This application delivers on the promise of real-world benefits of RFID technology, such as increased safety for consumers," said Jim Evans, vice president of Intellitag product management for Intermec. "It also means improved data collection and sharing throughout the supply chain. Now we're taking the technology to the next level by working with the major automakers to develop an inexpensive chip that will provide real-time tire inflation and temperature information to the driver."
    Tires with RFID chips could be released by January 2002. According to the Rubber Manufacturers Association, last year's shipments of tires for new passenger vehicles and light trucks totaled 67.3 million, while replacement tires totaled 233.2 million.
    Intermec's Intellitag RFID tags consist of a computer chip and an antenna enclosed in a housing, which can be read from and written to many times. Intellitag readers can read the data on many chips or tags at once, rather than one at a time, using low-power wireless signals that don't require line of sight like laser scanners. As a result, Intellitag chips and tags can be read as much as 40 times faster than conventional bar codes. The technology is also being used to track hazardous medical waste, check in rented videos, and verify the sanitization of returnable plastic containers for produce.