Delta Air Lines will start its second test of RFID
technology to track bags in the hope of improving accuracy over the
96.7% to 99.9% it achieved in a test last year.
Pat Rary, manager for baggage planning and development at Delta,
said the company plans to test every bag checked in on its Atlanta
route during the 30-day test.
Delta will use 20,000 RFID tags from Alien Technology and
another 20,000 tags from Matrics. The tags operate at a frequency
of 915 MHz, the same frequency that Wal-Mart Stores plans to use in
its supply chain.
Delta will write information to the RFID bag tags at the request
of the Transportation Security Administration, which has backed
both tests, Rary said. That information will include the flight
number, passenger name and what Rary called a "licence plate" - a
serial number that identifies each bag.
In the first test, Delta had its lowest tag-read accuracy on
metal containers the bags are placed in for loading into an
aircraft. Delta hoped to achieve higher accuracy by more careful
placement of the bags in the containers. Bag handlers have been
instructed to ensure that the tags do not touch the metal sides of
the containers.
He believed this could improve accuracy over the first test,
when the metal skin of the containers interfered with signals from
the reader antennas mounted on the wheeled lifts used to load the
containers on airplanes.
RFID bag tracking offers a "significant ROI" for Delta, Rary
said, as the airline spends "tens of millions of dollars" in
locating 800,000 misdirected bags a year. Delta handles 70 million
pieces of luggage every year.
Installing RFID bag-tracking systems at all Delta locations to
serve the airline's 7,000-plus daily flights remains a very
expensive proposition, he said, and the airline has no plans to
launch it systemwide.
Anthony Cerino, communications security technology lead at the
TSA, said international airlines such as Delta face a standards
problem when they send RFID-tagged bags to international
destinations. Different countries have approved different
frequencies for RFID use, for example, Japan uses 955 MHz while the
US tags operate at 915 MHz.
Later this year TSA plans to test tags programmed at one
frequency to see if they can be read at another frequency in the
relatively narrow 900-MHz band. If these tests are successful, it
would demonstrate "international interoperability", Cerino
said.
Bob Brewin writes for Computerworld