The Agility technology provides the performance of expensive asset tags but at the cost and simplicity of foam attached (FAT) tags. The FAT tag, a passive UHF inlay attached to a thin, flexible foam spacer, is designed to improve communication by creating distance between a transponder and metal. But the quick, cheap foam fix sacrifices performance.
Agility is a new kind of FAT tag that works much better because of its unique antenna design. An Agility tag achieves typical read ranges more than three times that of other FAT tags on metal and outperforms them on cardboard, plastic and other RF-friendly materials as well. Agility technology does not provide a ground plane or rigid substrate layer for spacing from metal like expensive asset tags; instead it uses the metal object it is attached to as a ground plane. Principal Investigator Dan Deavours incorporated the metal into the solution.
Deavours designed the Agility technology to work with a standard EPC Gen 2 tag that uses the Alien Higgs 2 integrated circuit (IC) as well as the NXP Ucode G2X Integrated Circuit.
The Agility technology employs 1/8 of an inch of foam and maybe 1/16 in the future while current tags use 3/16 of an inch or more. Extra-thin Agility tags have a lower profile and are less likely to be accidentally removed. Tags using Agility technology give approximately the same read distance on metal as they do on RF-friendly materials, typically 15-20 feet. Current thicker FAT tags are reduced to less than 6 feet on metal.
Agility Technology in the News
New article at RFID Journal
Articles on technology and
licensing at MoreRFID
Article at RFID Solutions Online
Article at RFID Product News
Article in the Lawrence Journal-World
Article in the Kansas City Business Journal
More Information
ITTC Technical Report
Agility Technology Press Release
Starport Licensing Press Release
Related Links
ITTC Technology Transfer
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KU Office of Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property
The Office of Technology Transfer & Intellectual Property (OTTIP) facilitates the transfer of technology by assisting KU researchers with intellectual property protection and commercialization, maintaining entrepreneurial and industry resources, and summarizing technology transfer activity for statistical and outreach purposes.
KTEC
The Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation (KTEC) is a private/public partnership established by the state of Kansas to promote technology based economic development.
