Fall 2009 » UA Q & A » What is the difference between RFID technology and barcodes?

What is the difference between RFID technology and barcodes?

August, 2008

Bill Hardgrave, professor of information systems in the Sam M. Walton College of Business, executive director of Information Technology Research Institute and director of the RFID Research Center, replies:

Fundamentally, radio frequency identification (RFID) is one example of a family of auto-identification technologies that also includes the barcode. Since the mid-1970s, the retail supply chain -- and many other areas -- have used barcodes as the primary form of auto identification. Barcodes are read with an optical reader – the red beam from the scanner as it reads the barcode – which converts the bars into a Universal Product Code. This code identifies the product manufacturer and type. Barcodes require direct line of sight. In other words, scanners must “see” the barcode. Also, only one barcode can be read at a time.
RFID, on the other hand, uses radio waves to transmit data rather than optical recognition. An RFID reader transmits a signal -- radio waves -- through one or more of its antennas. RFID tags, which hold product identification information electronically on a silicon chip, are inactive until the radio waves sent by the reader electromagnetically “charge” the tag. The RFID tag then answers the reader by sending back its information, which is captured by one of the reader’s antennas.
With RFID, line of sight is not necessary because RFID works via radio waves rather than optical recognition. Thus, information from an RFID tag can be read through boxes, in bottles and on stacked pallets. This type of data transmission also allows an RFID system to read thousands of tags almost simultaneously.
The information contained on an RFID tag is a product identifier known as an Electronic Product Code, which subsumes the typical Universal Product Code and adds one important piece of information – a serial number. This means that a Universal Product Code can identify only a product category, whereas an Electronic Product Code can identify a particular product. For example, when a can of soda is scanned using a barcode, workers know it is a can of soda, but they cannot tie it to a particular can. With an Electronic Product Code, a particular can of soda could be identified.