Alien Technology, an industry leader in UHF Gen 2 radio frequency identification (RFID) products and services, and St. Louis-based integrator partner Innovative Timing Systems (ITS) announced an unparalleled read success rate with the UHF RFID based Jaguar Race Timing System, where nearly 100% of all accounted participants crossing the finish line were read and timed at the world’s largest 5K event. The ability to read a mass sea of tagged participants in such a densely crowded environment is an incredible achievement for UHF RFID.

This year’s 71,000 plus participants at the Susan G. Komen St. Louis Race for the Cure were offered the opportunity to be timed with UHF RFID technology. Innovative Timing Systems stepped up to the challenge with its Jaguar Race Timing System, enabled by Alien Technology RFID ICs, readers and antennas.

“It was quite surreal to see people crammed tightly together, shoulder to shoulder… it looked like a scene from a movie where 71,000 people were trying to evacuate a city at the same time,” said Kurt Hansen, Innovative Timing Systems president. “With such a large mass of people, safety was paramount, so the system was designed for extremely high read reliability without any potential trip hazards - antennas were mounted overhead, unlike legacy ‘ramps or mats’ which are traditionally placed on the ground. Not all of the participants choose to be RFID timed, but those that did were happy to know that their results would be displayed in real-time, with no delay.”

Added Victor Vega, marketing director at Alien Technology, “The fruits of countless hours of characterization and true system engineering effort were clearly evident when ITS achieved such impressive results in one of the most challenging UHF RFID applications. Innovative Timing Systems is relentless in achieving perfection and their devotion shows in the results. It’s hard to imagine how such a high success rate could be accomplished with such a dense pack of people flowing continuously through the read zone… truly impressive. I can certainly see how this accomplishment can be useful beyond traditional marathons or 5K running events, for example, easily extending the system to monitor participant interest at conventions, at theme parks, or for crowd control at large entertainment or sporting events.”