In Yokohama, Japan, trials are being conducted to test whether RFID might make Japanese school children safer on their way to school and back again. The 4-month trial began this month using AeroScout’s T2 battery-powered RFID tags with call buttons. Its Communications, NTT Data, Nissan Motor, Trendy Corp and Tokyo Security are taking part in the trial as well. Apart from providing the RFID tags, AeroScout is also supplying RFID readers and software application for the system that tracks the movement of children in a 2-mile by 2 1/2-mile area encompassing one of the city schools.
The children taking part in the trail wear a bracelet with a 2.4 GHz RFID tag complying with the 802.11 Wi-Fi standards. The tags can be set to send a signal every second or every minute, to readers stationed as part of existing Cisco Wi-Fi access points used by the city for wireless Internet access and that is where the RFID readers are linked. Called i-Safety, it uses AeroScout software to determine the location of the child that is based on signal strength from readers in the vicinity. Then the location information goes to an NTT-run database, where a tag’s unique Media Access Control (MAC) address is matched to that location.
