RF Controls Announces Blockchain Foundational Supply Chain Visibility Through pRTLS (Passive Real-Time Location System)

RF Controls LLC, a leading provider of advanced, state-of-the-art passive radio frequency identification (pRFID) intelligent antenna hardware and operating system level software, recently announced the filing of a blockchain enabling provisional patent for the utilization of its Intelligent Tracking and Control System (ITCS). ITCS is a bi-directional, electronically steerable phased array antenna technology designed to bring real-time visibility to physical transactions throughout the global supply chain.

RF Controls suite of products include the recently announced CS445 Intelligent Antenna that is capable of providing unique item-level identification to a range of goods, with their precise three dimensional, x,y,z location coordinates and track their movements in real-time. The CS445 Intelligent Antenna is the only technology of its kind in the world today that solves the blockchain challenge of properly accounting for, locating and tracking tagged items in a way that facilitates automated distributed ledger accounting across the cloud.

“The foundation of physical blockchain transactions requires goods to be visible and shared with proper custodial accounting throughout the supply chain, in real-time,” said RF Controls’ CEO, Tom Ellinwood. “The CS445 acts as a permanent infrastructure to monitor wide area zones, eliminating human intervention and much of the time and cost involved in managing inventory as it moves from manufacturer to distribution to end-user consumption.”

The technology of RF Controls further facilitates the automation of blockchain transactions based upon proximity and association to their proper custodian. Goods are shipped, received, stocked and accounted for with seamless automation based solely on the identified object and its precise location with associated ownership at various exchange points along the supply chain. Real-time location and identification of all things brings unprecedented illumination to blockchain transactions.

According to Graham Bloy, RF Controls CTO, co-founder and inventor of its technology, the Company launched its first generation of FCC/ETSI/HERO certified technology in 2006. Now well proven, the Company’s fourth generation products are currently being used in global supply chain applications for item sorting and tracking, in retail applications for item movement and inventory management, as well as for asset tracking in large government agencies.

“This technology is based on years of research and development in target acquisition and trajectory tracking algorithms and the culmination of many generations in advanced synthetic narrow aperture bi-directional steerable phased array science spanning decades and previously utilized only by the military and in space exploration, the greatest challenges were to bring this multimillion dollar technology down to a consumer level price. Long thought impossible, we’ve solved the problems of RFID as it relates to speed, distance and accuracy,” said Bloy, whose background and patents include RF signature analysis, tracking and target acquisition systems, encryption and radar.

The CS suite of products is capable of tracking many thousands of tagged items in areas as small as a dressing room to as large as a jumbo jet manufacturing facility. "This massive amount of data is then aggregated using an intelligent edge device and stored in the cloud for further processing," said Alex Gaddie, Chief Software Engineer for RF Controls.

In short, the only cost-effective method for tracking IoT based transactions in retail, logistics and manufacturing is through the utilization of inexpensive passive RFID tags. Our ability to accurately track tagged assets in real time, at distances unmatched by any other technology sets RF Controls apart from any other approach to blockchain distributed ledgers currently being used.”

Artificial Intelligence - Train the Brain

According to Ellinwood, “RF Controls patented technology is the key enabling element to accurately, automatically and cost effectively capturing, on large scale, the heretofore hidden brontobytes of global IoT data. If you can tag it, we can track it. As blockchain is inevitably adopted and expanded to real things, in real time, only we can and will provide that data through the blockchain, ultimately training, IN REAL TIME, the AI brain.”