Working with Regulations and Standards

The aim of this chapter is to understand the regulations and standards at work in the RFID industry. It explores three avenues: RFID regulations, RFID standards, and the impact of these regulations and standards. The regulations in the RFID industry serve two main purposes: to keep RFID devices safe (for example, in the area of human exposure to radiation) and to prevent RFID devices from disrupting the existing services in the RF arena. These goals are established by regulating the maximum power emitted by the devices and by regulating operating frequencies. The main purpose of RFID standards is to ensure interoperability: Different systems and components work together effectively. This helps an industry to advance, and it also helps create healthy marketing competition among vendors. There are two main standards organizations in the RFID arena: ISO, which develops standards for several industries, and EPCglobal, which is specific to RFID.