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Summary

A Swedish research institute has a developed a chipless electronic ID technology for low-cost tagging of flexible substrates. The ID codes are all-printed and compatible with EPC (electronic product code). Possible applications are product and asset tracking, supply chain automation, access control, brand name protection and authentication. The institute is looking for technical cooperation and application development with industry, such as printing houses and packaging companies.

Full description

A Swedish institute has developed a chipless electronic ID technology, where the electronic tags are printed by use of flexo or screen printing in one step. Both reel-to-reel and sheet printing are possible technologies. Practically any flexible substrate can be used, including common package materials, such as paper, board, corrugated board and plastics. Also, rather rugged substrates can be used. Tagging can also be integrated in a package line or similar.
Active organic inks are used in the tag print. These are environmentally friendly in processing and the resulting prints are compatible with paper recycling.
The technology is compatible with electronic product code (EPC).
The tags are detected and read wireless. Typical reading distance is 1 mm. Line-of-sight is not required, which is the most important feature when compared to optical barcode. Tags can be read when placed inside a package or over-printed with graphics. This provides several advantages. First, by placing the code inside of a package it is protected from physical damage. Second, the surface of a package can be used for decorative or informative prints. Third, in security applications it is often desired to tag items indiscernibly.
The reader is low-cost equipment. Depending on the application it can be made as a hand-held instrument, a fixed station or other solution due to application.

Innovative Aspects

• Compatible with EPC (electronic product code).
• Tags can be placed inside of packages, either to be hidden or to be protected from physical damage.
• Tags can be overprinted with graphics. These prints can be decorative or informative, e g optical bar-codes.
• Large volumes produced at low cost.
• Tagging of packages made in-line.
• Environmentally friendly production.
• Tags compatible with paper recycling.
• Small, easily operated, low-cost reader as hand-held instrument, fixed station or other.

Partner expertise sought:

- Type of partner sought: Industry, ie printing house, packaging supplier, manufacturer in need of authentication and/or logistics
- Specific area of activity of the partner: Printing, packaging, manufacturing
- Task to be performed by the partner sought: Develop/define new application fields for the technology