- 16 June 2005 -

The RAT race

TiaLinx Inc, a developer of RF signal processing modules, has been awarded a Small Business Innovative Research Phase I award from the National Science Foundation.

The objective of this program with the NSF is to use TiaLinx's proprietary technology to address feasibility of accurately managing inventory of passively tagged assets while being tamper proof, and environmentally resilient.

Current handheld interrogators are not only expensive for mass deployment, some are not designed based on the open standards, and they can also be inefficient in collecting the information while in motion. A Reader and Active Tag (RAT) is a local reader/interrogator of passive tags in a container.

The RAT can retrieve inventory from passively tagged assets, store the inventory in memory for on-demand retrieval, or relay gathered inventory to a remote access interrogator. RAT will offer orders of magnitude enhancement in cost, weight, and accurate tracking of inventory.

"TiaLinx is proud to receive this Phase I SBIR award from the National Science Foundation, as it indicates the significance of the technological breakthrough that is being developed," commented Dr Fred Mohamadi, founder and CEO of TiaLinx.

"Distributed supply chain management using the RAT technology applies to design of versatile information gathering and processing network for identification, authentication and tracking of fixed and mobile assets globally."

The protected spatial mapping technology of TiaLinx addresses a variety of applications such as early warning radar, ad hoc communication, point-to-point and point-to-multipoint wireless connectivity, radiometry and passive-medical imaging, mobility aids for blinds, homeland security and surveillance, and collision avoidance systems.

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