Benefits – Problems VRN™ Solves
Menta’s VRN™ technology is designed to tackle the most challenging obstacles facing the RFID industry today:
Physical barriers and RF limitations
The numerous physical barriers and RF limitations that exist in a typical RFID environment do not allow smooth, continuous, accurate operation of the RFID network. These problems include:
- RF reflections and attenuetions making tag identification and operation very difficult
- Readers operating at the same wavelength interfere with each other
- Tags interfere with each other
- Noise from external sources can cause disruptions
In many cases, these problems are so severe that they prevent the operability of the network altogether. In some cases, these problems force corporations to use expensive and/or specially tailored tags.
The solution: VRN™ has been proven to achieve 100% accuracy and reliability. VRN™ does not just improve RFID performance; VRN™ enables it.
Timely response, which forces organizations to change existing processes
Since tags traveling above a certain velocity may escape reading altogether, in many cases the implementation of RFID-based technology forces organizations to slow their existing processes. For example: a red light may be used to indicate that not all items entering a warehouse have been identified. This forces the process to stop until all tags have been read successfully. Another example: It may be necessary to slow down a product line to ensure that tag write operations always complete successfully.
The solution: VRN™ completely hides the RF constrains from applications, thus allowing existing processes to continue without slowdowns while maintaining an accurate, high-quality RFID system. By doing so, VRN™ enables the use of RFID in a virtually endless range of industries and applications.
Security and privacy challenge
The open nature of RFID technology makes it vulnerable to potential security and privacy risks. However, the continued downward pressure on the price of tags limits their capacity to handle privacy and security. The problems include:
- Lack of end-to-end encryption of tag data
- Lack of intrusion detection and prevention mechanisms
- Lack of an eavesdropping prevention mechanism
- Lack of a dynamic, multi-level permission mechanism for tag operations
The solution: Menta's VRN™ was carefully designed to provide security and privacy without overloading individual tags with information, functionality, or cost. Menta's VRN™solves a wide range of security and privacy challenges by providing end-to-end encryption (from tag to application), eavesdropping detection and prevention, and multi-level permission mechanisms, thus enabling the use of RFID over a wide range of security- and privacy-sensitive industries and applications.
Regulatory limitations
All over the world, local regulators limit the usage of popular RFID frequency ranges; RFID readers are allowed to transmit radio waves only at specified energy levels. These regulations force companies to use RFID equipment in a sub-optimal setup, which results in reduced accuracy, reduced read ranges, and increased time required to identify tagged items.
The solution: Menta's VRN™ automatically optimizes usage of the network's RF resources within the predefined regulation constraints, while creating an RFID network that is high quality and, at the same time, efficient and environment-friendly.
High cost of implementation and integration and low ROI
Companies seeking to deploy RFID systems face unavoidable costly, lengthy, labor-intensive implementation and integration processes. These processes typically include RF survey, software implementation, and integration. Both initial and ongoing related costs are very high, hurting the delicate ROI structure of an RFID implementation.
The solution: VRN™ enables a family of off-the-shelf products that require no customization, integration, or coding, thus saving the significant cost, time, and labor required for RFID setup and increasing ROI. VRN™ has been proven to save up to 70% of setup and ongoing RFID infrastructure costs.
Over-dependency on the underlying hardware
Today's RFID environment creates heavy dependency on the underlying hardware among companies using RFID networks. Companies find themselves tied to specific RFID readers, printers, and terminals.
This reality is very problematic to companies for one or more of the following reasons:
- A typical RFID environment is dynamic. The best hardware today may not be the best tomorrow.
- RFID standards are still evolving. Companies want to be able to easily change hardware vendors if their products fail to constantly meet evolving RFID standards.
- Some RFID applications use heterogeneous combinations of tags and readers. For example, in certain pharmaceutical applications, it is customary to use a combination of both HF and UHF technologies. Companies are looking for a single infrastructure to support a mix of RFID technologies.
- No purchasing department wants to be 100% dependent on a single source, no matter how good it may be.
The solution: VRN™ supplies the flexibility to use any combination of RFID hardware without necessitating changes in the application layer and without any additional integration costs. Additional supported readers can be seamlessly connected to the system without additional setup or other costs.
Business applications directly linked to the complexities of the RF world
Today's RFID implementations force a direct link between application and RFID/RF related complexities. This puts an unnecessary burden on application developers and limits the possibility of using a single RFID infrastructure to feed multiple RFID applications. There is a growing need to insulate the business applications that use RFID data (such as ERP and Supply Chain Management) from the complexities and complications related to the physical environment of RFID-enabled facilities.
The solution: VRN™ creates the ultimate gateway between the RFID world and upper-layer applications. Application developers need not be aware of RFID protocols, events, and data, or of RF limitations and problems. Furthermore, when needed, additional applications can easily leverage the same RFID infrastructure without any additional related costs.
