A Fundamental Study on Management Method for Light Weight Temporary Facilities Using Metal Radio Frequency Identification Tags

Abstract

As light weight temporary facilities are used many times and are deteriorating over a long time, it is desired to identify the actually used period for each member and to abandon the members if they are used overtime. However, this has never been executed before since it takes too much time and cost. The authors performed experiments for applying ultra high frequency (UHF) band radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to management of light weight temporary facilities before and found it feasible but observed the necessity of protecting soft UHFT RFID tags used for the experiments. Now that new 2.45GHz band RFID tags that are covered with metal and that are resistant to shocks have been developed, the authors executed experiments on the usability of the new metal RFID tags and on the application of them to light weight temporary facilities. The results showed that the new metal RFID tags can be used if they are attached to metal members by inserting 2mm thick non metal object between the metal surface and the RFID tag. Furthermore, the authors developed a prototype of a database system for managing the usage of light weight temporary facilities by using the metal RFID tags. The database system deployed a relational data model having five tables representing data of facility members and leasing track records. This system was tested for reading multiple RFID tags attached facility members and demonstrated its feasibility and practicality.