Walking Plant Systems (WPS), one of Holland’s leading systems providers for greenhouse botanical growers, is using RFID technology in its Plant Order System. Growers using the system, fit each flower pot with a TAGSYS RFID tag. Zetes, which specializes in automatic identification of goods and people, partnered with TAGSYS to integrate RFID infrastructure into the project.
“TAGSYS’ technology allows WPS’ customers to track the progress of every single plant in a 30,000 square-meter greenhouse from seed to sale — which can take from six months to a year,” said Olivier Burah, Vice President EMEA of TAGSYS.
The Plant Order System is a fully automated system of pot-adapters, conveyor belts, and plant nutrition systems that guides plants from initial seeding to individual customer orders. With a combination of RFID and photography, Zetes’ software ensures individual plants receive specialized care; the tag identifies the plant itself and Zetes’ imaging software infers plant health from its relative shape. More specifically, if a plant appears to need more nutrients, the system can send that plant to the corresponding section of the greenhouse.
The Dutch potted plant business is the largest and most advanced in the world. Holland has approximately 1500 potted plant growers who command approximately 1000 hectares of greenhouse space.
“The main selling point of the RFID system is its 100 percent reliability and its diversity,” said Richard van der Meijs, sales manager for WPS. “It is vital for florists to know what they have in stock. The delivery process is extremely delicate, and the quality must meet the highest standards.”
There are currently at least three million tags in use among WPS customers. TAGSYS uses the TAGSYS uses the 10-TL tag and the Medio L100 reader on the project. The 13.56 MHz 10-TL tag is low in cost and highly reliable despite harsh environmental conditions and multi reader dense antenna environments. The tag fits snugly into the pot-adapter, which is a casing for the actual pot. The pots are then fed into a machine and filled with soil and a seedling. They are transferred to tra10-TL tagcys and kept at constant temperature for 30 weeks. During this time, a ceiling-mounted irrigation system sprays each plant with fertilized water.
Trays then undergo at least two more room changes, where they experience temperature/humidity shifts and regular flooding. Finally a sorting system routes plants into groups for individual customers; machines remove the RFID tags and recycle them for new plants.
In (somewhat) related news, the fourth annual Healthcare Unbound Conference focused on technology-aided care and wireless technology strategies this week.
“Seniors have varying abilities and disabilities…if you plan to go after the senior market, you’ll need four or five different senior personas”, noted one speaker.
Age not only brings diminished eyesight but also a weakened ability to recognize color contrasts. Diminished hearing is also a common challenge among the elderly, who not only find it necessary to turn up the volume on devices but can struggle with hearing high-pitched tones.
Intel’s Digital Health Group has been active in healthcare needs research for the last six years. Prototype smart homes, equipped with a network of sensors that track and monitor everything from cooking habits to purchasing activities to level and quality of physical movement, have been built and tested in Hillsboro.
The Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST) is leading the national charge to develop and deploy technologies that can improve the aging experience in America.
DARPA hopes to create a tiny chip that would fit into a person’s ear and monitor vital signs such as body temperature, pulse and blood pressure. Medtronic, a large medical-device-maker, won regulatory approval for an implantable defibrillator that links up with hospital equipment or a home monitoring device. Along with three other companies — CardioMEMS, St Jude Medical and Remon Medical Technologies — Medtronic is racing to market a device for congestive heart failure. Once implanted, the device will measure pressure and fluid inside a patient’s heart and wirelessly send the data to an external unit. With regular monitoring, patients will be alerted to abnormalities at an early stage.
RFID is a key technology to improve workflows in hospitals and for drug trafficing for pharmaceutical companies worried about inexpensive drugs coming in from Canada.
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