RFID must operate globally since it is frequently used with products that move worldwide. It is therefore essential that equipment manufactured by different RFID vendors is interoperable.

Different applications, like conveyor belts or dock door portals, are characterized by different properties such as field characteristics, tag population, speed and reader density.

These properties impose different requirements such as read or write sensitivity and resistance to mutual coupling. Exposing tags of different types from different vendors to interrogators supplied by a range of manufacturers in application specific conditions will determine if there are any combinations that are incompatible.

The purpose of these Plugtests is to investigate if there is a satisfactory level of interoperability between equipment supplied by these different vendors. This information will be of major strategic importance to those end-users who wish to use RFID on a global basis.

ETSI planned to conduct the Plugtests co-organized by the China Electronic Standardization Institute - CESI and hosted at China Postal Scientific Research and Planning Academy - CPST. This RFID Plugtests focuses upon the Postal sector and in particular China Post applications.

This event was open to manufacturers of interrogators, foundries that fabricate the ASICs for the tags and tag manufacturers and wasperformed in real-world scenarios such as dock door portals and conveyors. The tests were run by neutral test supervisors.

Number of participants
Thirty five participants attended from sixteen different companies.