The COVID-19 pandemic led to a lot of changes in our daily lives, and technology is playing role in these changes. Powercast, a leader in RF technology, found that its RFID technology is ideal for scanning temperatures of its employees as they entered work, and now the RFID Temperature Scanning System is drawing notice as well as commercial interest.

The Temperature Scanning System is made up of a wirelessly-powered temperature-scanning fob, an RFID reader and a TV monitor. Each employee receives a personalized fob that is designed to fit onto their keychain. When held near an RFID reader, the fob charges, and employees scan their own forehead. Their temperature appears on the monitor, allowing them to enter the building.

Powercast highlighted the technology at the virtual CES 2021, and was honored with 2021 BIG Innovation Awards presented by the Business Intelligence Group.

Dr. Charles Greene, COO and CTO of Powercast, noted that the pandemic was the driving force for the development of the RFID Temperature Scanning System.

“When the pandemic hit, we joined the rest of the world in transitioning to remote working,” Dr. Greene said. “As employees began to return to the office, IR thermometers were placed at each entryway, disposable masks and hand sanitizer were made readily available, and a shared company calendar monitored how many people were in the building at any given time.”

Like many other businesses, Powercast kept a handheld IR thermometer at the front door for entrants to use to check and record their temperature before entering the building. The issue was, however, that both the handheld scanner and the pen were high touch areas.

“Sanitizing before and after use was effective, but we knew we could do better,” Dr. Greene continued. “Out of both innovation and necessity, our talented team of engineers designed a system utilizing the building’s existing RFID infrastructure and our wireless power technology together to keep our employees safe. We were able to eliminate the common touchpoints and keep a digital record of building entrants for contact tracing purposes.”

As Dr. Greene noted, many educational facilities, offices and other large campuses have RFID readers at entryways for building access control. Powercast’s COVID-19 Temperature Tracking System utilizes those existing scan-in points to enable battery-free temperature readings that act as another layer in safe building access control.

“Common touchpoints and closely shared indoor spaces are two of the leading factors that contribute to the spread of COVID-19,” Dr. Greene said. “While handheld thermometers provide a way to check temperature upon entering a building, shared devices are to be eliminated wherever possible. Additionally, the time it takes for each employee to take and record their temperatures can cause bottlenecking in entryways and common areas – another behavior to be avoided.

“Powercast’s personal scanners eliminate both of these issues and encourage quick, individualized health screenings that permit or deny entry without the need for a third party monitoring whether or not entrants are obeying policy,” he added.

When moving throughout a facility, other RFID readers placed throughout the building are able to capture location data for each scanner device. This location data is stored and can be used for contact tracing purposes. Utilizing the uniquely identified fob devices for contact tracing allows users to maintain the security of their personal information while still participating in a vitally important virus mitigation process.

Cost is also key.

“Most importantly, the devices are relatively low cost – each personal unit employs only a small IR temperature sensor, LED, RFID chip, and Powercast’s Powerharvester technology,” said Dr. Greene. “The device functions with existing RFID access control systems, lessening the need for additional infrastructure investment and making the system easily accessible to companies of all sizes.”

Dr. Greene observed that there were some challenges, the Powercast’s RFID team overcame them quickly. The first issue Powerceast encountered was with unique device identification.

“If there was more than one person/device near the scan-in location at a time (i.e. two people in the lobby area queuing to scan in), the software would attempt to retrieve data (i.e. a temperature) from whichever tag was seen by the reader first,” he pointed out. “So, when there was a person attempting to scan in, the reader would occasionally try to retrieve data from another fob that was six or more feet away, which of course was problematic. To solve this, our firmware engineer implemented an RSSI threshold to identify which of the fobs is closest to the reader antenna. If there is more than one tag in the scan area, the reader will only interrogate the tag with the highest RSSI value.

“Setting up the system beyond that was relatively simple, but did require training sessions with employees,” Dr. Greene added. “Different from traditional RFID access points, our temperature scanning system requires the user to briefly hold the fob near the reader. This pause allows our power harvesting technology to convert the RF energy from the reader to DC power, charging a small capacitor that powers the embedded temperature sensor. Once our employees practiced a few times allowing the fob to charge, the system was able to be launched to keep our Pittsburgh, PA facility safer.”

Powercast has been deploying wireless power solutions for more than 15 years, so the power harvesting technology came easy for them.

“Our temperature monitoring system is an extension to our PCT product line of wirelessly powered sensors, and is a great fit for the high functionality RFID space,” Dr. Greene said. “Our technology also powers small sensors, LEDs, small radio modules, charges batteries, and more. Other applications include our Wireless Charging Grip for Nintendo Joy-Con controllers, our battery-free RFID sensing tags, British Airways’ TAG, and SportCor’s SmartBall, to name a few.”

Dr. Greene said that the RFID Temperature Scanning System has proved to be a success.

“The system is deployed in Powercast’s Pittsburgh, PA facility and has taken over 900 individual temperature readings to date,” he noted. “Thankfully, no employees have yet been denied entry due to a high temperature. If there were an instance of a potentially sick employee, a screen in the lobby area of the building would alert the user that their temperature is too high and that they should return home and alert HR.

“Other available temperature scanning devices employ batteries to function, while Powercast’s system does not,” Dr. Greene added. “This solves two pressing issues – battery waste and dead batteries. Employing a solution that utilizes wireless energy as its primary power source eliminates the need for replaceable batteries, which could otherwise end up in a landfill.

“The lack of battery also means that there is no worry about the fob not being able to function due to a dead battery – as long as the user is at an entry point, the device will be operational. Once the user leaves the entryway and moves throughout the facility, other RFID infrastructure can track the location of the fob devices for contact tracing purposes.”

Since the RFID Temperature Scanning System worked well for Powercast, the next step is commercialization.

“Powercast has productized the system and has deployed it at their Pittsburgh, PA facility. We are actively talking with partners to deploy this system, and offer customization to fit each partners’ needs. Use-case data from Powercast’s own internal deployment use can be applied as an illustration of the scalability and trustworthiness of the system as we begin to shape the post-COVID-19 world,” Dr. Greene observed.