Embedded Chips and Radio Queries: A Look at the Future

by Major Stephen M. Rutner, Ph.D., USAR

During late 2002 and early 2003, the Army was called on to deploy large numbers of forces based in the continental United States to locations throughout the world. These forces eventually included two mechanized infantry divisions (the 3d Infantry and 4th Infantry) and three light divisions (the 10th Mountain, 82d Airborne, and 101st Airborne). This undertaking required the shipping of massive numbers of vehicles and other bulk items to various ports in the Southwest Asia theater. On many occasions during the upload for these deployments, transportation officers and commanders were asked to locate specific items. Fulfilling these requests often meant that individual soldiers had to stop performing their assigned tasks and physically search the port or ship for a specific item.

While each request was made for an important reason (such as finding missing equipment, removing a vehicle from the shipment, or installing a part), the overall effect was reduced efficiency during a period when timeliness was extremely critical. The manual process of maintaining in-transit visibility (ITV) met the need of the customer (the maneuver forces), but it placed an additional burden on the suppliers (the transporters).

Transporters must recognize that customer requirements for ITV will only increase in the future. Maneuver commanders soon will demand the ability to identify the location of every major end item in transit anywhere in the world. In fact, a common request will soon be, “What is the position of end items within the ship?” This type of detail will be required to plan unloading operations and will be especially important for forced-entry operations.

A number of emerging technologies and processes not only can reduce the difficulties experienced in recent deployments but also can improve the overall effectiveness of the transportation process. Army and civilian logisticians need the ability to identify the specific location of an item throughout the transportation process, whether they are searching for a vehicle at a port or a box of tissues on a store shelf. In both cases, there are numerous benefits to being able to locate that item at any time. For the military, the most likely near-term solution could be radio frequency identification (RFID).

What Is Radio Frequency Identification?

RFID is a process based on the embedding of a computer chip that is so thin it will fit into the width of a paper label. For example, the chip could be placed within the barcode label that is put on the side of a military vehicle or a container being shipped overseas.

RFID is an emerging technology in the marking, or “tagging,” of items. The system uses the ultrathin chips to store information electronically in a manner similar to that of an inked barcode label. However, RFID provides a much more powerful tool because of its ability to respond to radio requests or queries. So a simple metaphor for RFID is that it is a “super,” or “power,” barcode system.

Current RFID “smart tags” are able to store a 96-bit code that can identify over 268 million unique manufacturers, with each manufacturer having over 1 million products. The result is that there are approximately 3.5 x 1051 possible combinations that can be stored with RFID chips. This capability allows civilian companies to track individual items easily. The substantial number of combinations available through smart tags could allow the Department of Defense (DOD) to track every individual end item in the entire military.

Although their capabilities are impressive, RFID tags cannot operate alone. The other major parts of an RFID system are the readers, the repeaters, and the database. To gather information, an electronic query must be sent from a source to the chip or tag. Because the system uses radio signals, this query does not require an unobstructed, direct line of sight as a barcode reader does. The RFID chip replies to the electronic query by providing the information it stores to the reader. Repeaters are used when necessary to relay the data over long distances. The information then is input to the overall control system or database.

Currently, each reader is fairly expensive and has a query range of about 6 feet. However, this situation is likely to improve in the near future as civilian companies continue to refine RFID technology that will allow the use of a few readers to cover a port or the holds of ships and aircraft. Almost 100 global companies and five of the world’s leading research universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, formed the Auto-ID Center in 1999 as a unique partnership to apply RFID to logistics and transportation processes. DOD is a member of this group. While RFID is an evolutionary step in technology, the participants in the Auto-ID Center have recognized numerous possibilities for using RFID to improve their overall logistics processes. ITV is just one possible area where RFID could be used in the military.

How Can RFID Be Used by the Military?

It is safe to assume that industry is prepared to increase the use of RFID throughout the supply chain over the next few years. The question therefore becomes, How can the military apply RFID in its operations to gain increased efficiencies and improve ITV? Because of the nature of the technology, the answer is at once simple and complicated.

When a piece of Army equipment is shipped, it receives a shipping label bearing a number of critical pieces of information, including the vehicle’s transportation control number, nomenclature, dimensions, weight, port of embarkation and port of debarkation, and a barcode. While this system works well in theory, there are some practical problems that reduce its effectiveness.

The high operational tempo of the modern Army means that the same vehicle may be shipped several times in 1 year. Since the transportation labels are designed to be very hard to remove, a tank could end up with two or three labels attached to its side that reflect different movements. It is common for the wrong label, and thus the wrong barcode, to be scanned. This means that the transportation unit must go back and manually correct the resulting error in the computer system and physically confirm the correction on the vehicle. If that tank already has been loaded onto a ship, someone will have to crawl over other vehicles to find it and then rescan its label (and that assumes the label is accessible, which is not always the case on a tightly packed ship).

An RFID system could help to minimize such problems. First, the chips would be time sensitive, so out-of-date labels with RFID chips would not reply to a query; that would reduce the number of improper scans. Second, since RFID chips do not have to be in a direct line of sight to be scanned, the RFID system would be able to identify the location of any vehicle; a soldier would not have to be physically next to and in the line of sight of the barcode. The RFID system also would improve ITV by using a single query to make a “snapshot” of all the vehicles in a staging area, in a hold, or on a pier; the data then could be downloaded into various systems to obtain ITV. Data from the snapshot also could be downloaded into the Integrated Computerized Deployment System (ICODES), where they could be used to improve the accuracy of trim and stability calculations.

RFID technology can help to improve the most basic transportation functions. However, the military can use RFID in other areas. For example, it is very common for priority cargo lists to change as a mission evolves. RFID could be used to mark the priority items. As changes occur, those items would be recoded as necessary. This would improve the control of priority items by providing an additional check as they move through the system.

Another area that could benefit from RFID is control of hazardous materials (HAZMAT). While RFID would not replace the current HAZMAT marking system, it could provide an additional check on HAZMAT items. For example, requirements for storing containers loaded with class 2 and class 3 products specify minimum required distances between the containers. [Class 2 hazardous materials are gases; class 3 are flammable liquids.] In these cases, the RFID tag could include the types of hazardous materials in the container and could alert users if noncompatible items are stored too closely together. Eventually, the chips would be able to query each other and alert personnel in real time if a stowage violation occurred.

These examples highlight only a few of the advantages of RFID technology to the military; numerous other logistics and operational areas eventually will benefit from its use. Some future possibilities include the control of class IX (repair parts) inventories. Imagine how much easier it would be to reorder parts using a system that automatically queries embedded chips every few minutes and accounts for parts as they are used. Ammunition also could receive RFID chips. Consider the ease of clearing a range if every tank is automatically queried for ammunition as it passes by a reader. Another possibility is the application of RFID to individual weapons, which would allow for tighter control of arms rooms and help in finding the dreaded “lost weapon in the field.”

There clearly are many opportunities to apply RFID throughout the Army to improve control not only of logistics and transportation but also of many operational processes. The true limitation of the system will be the creativity of users in employing the strengths of RFID.

What Are the Costs, Limitations, and Concerns?

While the greatest limitation to using RFID technology may be the inventiveness of users, some other significant problems must be addressed before RFID can be implemented fully throughout the military. Five major hurdles must be overcome—

•Total equipment and training costs.

•Information system compatibility.

•Operational locations and distances.

•Security.

•Timeliness.

With shrinking budgets, cost will always be a major issue. The current cost per RFID chip is prohibitive when compared to barcodes. There also appears to be a “chicken or egg” type of problem. Manufacturers suggest that a huge order (in the multiple billion-unit range) will reduce chip costs to be comparable to a barcode label (that is, less than 1 cent each). However, civilian companies will not place a large order until the price for chips is greatly reduced from the current price of just under 1 dollar to approximately 5 cents per chip. Eventually, production quantities will be large enough to reduce costs (possibly due to large DOD or other Government purchases.) Besides the chips themselves, the cost of readers and repeaters remains high compared to similar technologies. So cost remains an obstacle to RFID use in the short term.

The consistency and compatibility of information in the RFID system also is a challenge. Currently, the Auto-ID Center and other organizations are working to standardize the information contained on RFID chips. However, this will be a civilian-led project that may not meet the military’s needs. The data also may be designed to feed into existing Enterprise Resource Planning systems and not be compatible with current DOD systems. There are solutions to this problem, but they will take additional time and resources to implement. The best long-term solution is to adopt an off-the-shelf database system (such as Oracle, SAP, or PeopleSoft) that will be compatible with the RFID system to minimize adoption problems.

The Army’s requirements for operating at many locations and over great distances represent another challenge for RFID use. For example, an assistant division commander (support) once proudly told me how he was implementing RFID in his division. He had a few tags and two readers, so he was able to track the lead wheeled vehicle of a few convoys when they departed the post and when they arrived at the port. While his heart was in the right place, clearly his equipment was not adequate to provide true ITV. The solution to this challenge is easy in theory but difficult in practice. Most major trucking companies employ satellite tracking on their vehicles. However, current RFID technology cannot reach satellites. The short-term solution, therefore, is to have many portable readers and mobile relay stations. The long-term answer is to improve the technology.

The location-and-distance problem hints at the security issues that using RFID could create. It obviously would not be logical to allow an enemy to query U.S. equipment and receive any data, much less the current location of the equipment. An encryption process is needed that does not allow a chip to respond to an unauthorized signal. This is something that will be critical to civilian uses as well and should not present a major problem for implementation.

The final challenge is the timeframe for implementing the system. As noted above, current prices are causing some delays in implementing RFID technology. However, the implementation process of any major information system must be measured in years. There also are technological problems that must be addressed to meet the unique needs of the military. So it is not realistic to assume that RFID will be implemented before 2007. The use of off-the-shelf technology, existing systems, and civilian applications should help to push the process forward. The military can piggyback on civilian improvements to overcome many problems.

How Could RFID Be Implemented?

The current shortcomings of the RFID system should not deter the military from beginning to use it. Given its long-term benefits, it would be reasonable to start a limited test of the potential of RFID. However, because of the strategic importance of being able to project military forces, the RFID implementation process should err on the conservative side. It therefore should include the following steps—

•Study of the military potential of RFID.

•A pilot project involving limited units and a limited area (such as one battalion and one port).

•Division-wide implementation and a final trial.

•Army-wide adoption.

The first steps already are underway with the inclusion of DOD in the Auto-ID Center. This phase should be limited to no more than 1 year. The potential problem is that, as new applications for RFID are discovered, there will be pressure for further study, which could delay RFID implementation for already-identified functions like transportation.

A limited pilot project could use a unit, such as one of the battalions of the 3d Infantry Division (Mechanized) that is deployed frequently, the U.S. Transportation Command, CSX Transportation (railroad), and a port operator to test various parts of the RFID system in a controlled setting such as a normal exercise or deployment. Then an entire division could be brought on line for a large-scale test. After necessary adjustments and improvements, an Army-wide program could be instituted. Army-wide implementation of RFID could be broadened to include all of DOD to ensure standardization and compatibility as part of the new joint view of operations.

How Will the Future of RFID Look?

RFID will require a significant amount of time before it is fully implemented in the military. However, as the obstacles and challenges are overcome, improvements to current systems and changes in business processes will allow all of DOD to benefit.

It is easy to imagine a future RFID system that improves management of the transportation process, including ITV. Assume that there is a time when all major end items have embedded RFID chips containing all of the information that is currently available on barcode labels, plus a great deal more. A unit is ordered to deploy. RFID readers verify that all of the information on the chips is updated for the new mission. Deployment support teams verify the dimensions and weight of each item with a quick scan before it leaves the installation; this reduces the need for staging areas before items arrive at the port. Satellite readers track the items to the port of embarkation (whether air or sea).

The seaport of embarkation can verify incoming items. Improved accuracy reduces the number of “frustrated” pieces of cargo at the port. As priorities change, a flick of a switch identifies the new priorities. This capability has eliminated the need to mark vehicles manually with engineering tape and stage them separately. Requests to identify a specific vehicle now take only a minute. A more accurate count of items at the port is available instantly.

Vehicles are loaded onto the ship. As changes are made to the stowage plan, the RFID system accurately reflects the new location of each vehicle, not only by hold but within a few feet of its actual location (assuming the Military Sealift Command equips the fleet with readers and repeaters.) This capability allows the vessel’s crew to calculate trim and stability requirements accurately, verify HAZMAT, and confirm the manifest. As the ship sails, supercargoes can find specific vehicles as needed. For instance, they can find a problem vehicle that must be started every 6 hours to keep a charge on its battery.

At the port of debarkation, the maneuver commander knows the approximate order for unloading the vessel and alerts the appropriate subordinate units to send labor. If a staging lot is used, RFID will help soldiers find their specific pieces of equipment. The maneuver forces can control the flow of vehicles and track them to their assembly areas. Once vehicles are in the assembly areas, the commander’s evaluation of the tactical situation determines if it is appropriate to continue to use RFID. (The experience of the 507th Maintenance Company in Iraq demonstrates that most support units could benefit from an additional check of location to ensure that they do not wander into hostile areas.)

This example of a future deployment provides a basic vision of the possibilities of RFID in the military. But there undoubtedly are many other possibilities that have not been considered.

The concept of RFID is a sound, practical solution that the private sector is beginning to implement to improve their overall logistics efficiencies. The military has the same opportunity to improve its transportation and logistics processes. The increasing capabilities of companies such as FedEx and UPS to track millions of packages a year in real time demonstrate the possibilities of an exceptional logistics system.

The U.S. military has some unique requirements, but there can be no excuse for not being as good as the best of civilian industry. RFID offers an opportunity to DOD and the Army to close the gap with their civilian counterparts. The maneuver commanders of the future will have grown up with the ability to point, click, order, and track products on line. They will demand the same capabilities from their suppliers: the transporters and logisticians of the 21st century. ALOG

Major Stephen M. Rutner, USAR, is serving as the pre-stow officer for the 1189th Transportation Terminal Brigade at Charleston, South Carolina. He holds a Ph.D. in business, with a major in logistics and transportation, from the University of Tennessee. In civilian life, he is an Associate Professor of Logistics and Transportation at Georgia Southern University.