RFID is Poised for Change

Great importance of active RFID

15% of the expenditure on RFID, and a larger percentage of the profit, is for active RFID where 2.45GHz is increasingly the most popular frequency. For example, WhereNet, a $40 million division of Zebra Technologies, is a leader in the very hot form of active RFID called Real Time Locating Systems RTLS and Zebra has just bought Navis, a large RFID system integrator, to leverage that leadership. Heavy logistics and military applications feature large in active RFID applications, with healthcare coming up fast, partly thanks to RTLS from Cisco, Ekahau, PanGo Networks, AeroScout and others. Lockheed Martin (Savi Technology) sits astride the military active RFID business where orders of tens of millions of dollars are commonplace.