Sirit Inc., a global provider of RFID technology, and RF Controls, LLC, creators of the breakthrough Intelligent Tracking and Control System (ITCS), which achieves real-time location functionality for passive UHF RFID systems, commented on their partnership to improve the capabilities of the companies’ UHF RFID technologies.

Sirit and RF Controls have been working collaboratively under a strategic alliance framework. The result has been a tight coupling between Sirit’s class-leading INfinity 510 (IN510) UHF reader and RF Controls’ innovative bidirectional electronically steerable phased array (BESPA) antenna technology.

“This exciting strategic partnership with RF Controls has led to groundbreaking advancements with real time locationing systems. The high performance of the IN510 operating in conjunction with RF Controls’ novel antenna array allows for location and tracking RFID tags over an extremely large area with precision never before envisioned,” noted Dr. Bruce Roesner, chief technology officer, Sirit.

“Sirit’s ability to produce a world class UHF radio in the IN510 and their highly competent engineering staff, played a major role in the successful implementation of our line of ITCS SASLs,” Graham Bloy, chief technology officer and co-founder, RF Controls, remarked. “Sirit has been a great company with which to do business.”

RFID Journal Magazine heralded “beam-steerable phased-array antennas” as a top 10 technology to watch during 2009. RF Controls’ unique BESPA antenna technology, combined with the outstanding characteristics of the IN510 reader, results in a system – ITCS – which achieves exceptionally long operating range for passive UHF RFID tags and accurate locationing of the tags in 3D. This combination of valuable features has transformed the market’s expectations of the capabilities of passive UHF RFID systems.

An ITCS implementation comprises one or more Signal Acquisition and Source Location (SASL) “smart antenna” modules, each of which contains a Sirit IN510. SASLs are connected by Ethernet to an edge server which aggregates and collates data. ITCS achieves accurate location of tagged items in 3D – even with just a single SASL. Each SASL can accurately determine the ranges of tags with an accuracy of 1 foot (30 cm): ranging accuracy is consistent across the full operating range of a SASL.