Select site:
- English
Animal ID
General description
Contactless radio frequency identification (RFID) systems provide a secure and convenient solution for a number of animal identification applications including livestock tracking, and the tagging of pets and racing pigeons.
Background information
For livestock management two main issues need to be addressed. The first is tracking the livestock and meat from breeding to the supermarket, including all import/export activities. The importance of tracking has been highlighted in recent years with the outbreaks of 'mad cow disease'. The second issue is automation at feeding stations as well as slaughterhouses. At the feeding station, for example, one needs to know how often a particular cow addresses the feeding station; if the frequency goes down, it could be a sign of illness.
For pets, the main reason for tagging is in identifying stray animals. Whenever a stray animal is spotted, it is not possible to tell if it is a real stray or if it has an owner but has just left home for some adventure. The reason for this is that collars are not securely linked to the pet, whereas an injected RFID transponder cannot be lost.
For pigeon racing, electronic pigeon rings are used for fraud protection at pigeon races. To prevent fraud, the tags need to be encoded and as a result, authentication issues play a major role in this market.
Role of standards
In livestock tracking, animals often do not stay on one site but move through several places. This means that different readers from different organizations may be involved in collecting data from the same animal transponders. Therefore, it is important that the communication protocol used by the transponders is standardized and that every reader can read all transponders complying with the standard. The ISO 11784/85 standard has already been established and is widely used around the world. This standard offers a read-only protocol to read the unique number of the animal's transponder. This number is stored in a central database that contains all additional information on the animal.
As application requirements become increasingly complex, users want to access the animal's data directly from the transponder without having to contact the database. ISO 14223 enables e.g. vaccination data to be stored directly on the tag, This means that each animal's data is available directly and off-line, enabling improved stock tracking as well as reliable import/export control around the world whilst permitting transparent, verifiable, and affordable solutions. With an ISO 14223 standard gate reader, livestock can be automatically identified, even in large numbers (anticollision feature). In addition, it is backwards compatible as it also incorporates the ISO 11784/85 standard. ISO 14223/1 does not yet include the command set, but defines only the major interface parameters such as type of coding and modulation type - mainly linked to the hardware of a read/write device.
ISO 14223/2 is currently under development by the ISO Working Groups, closely linked to the software of read/write devices with the actual command set.
Products
NXP Semiconductors HITAG 2 and HITAG S transponder ICs are in full compliance with the animal ID standard ISO 11784/85 and ISO 14223-1. Additional features include encrypted authentication and multi tag operation.
Customer benefits
- Secure authentication of animals
- Detect several animals at the same time within one antenna
- Offline data storage through additional memory
- Fast delivery and lean logistic flow for transponder production through application of the ISO animal number just in time (OTP functionality)
- Best in class read/write operating range