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RFID Tracks College
Campus Keys
June 25, 2007
Luther College, located in the small northeast town of Decorah, Iowa,
is installing an active RFID-enabled security system to help it track key rings containing a number of master keys. These
keys are used to lock and unlock 56 buildings and more than a dozen other key-access facilities on the college's 800-acre
campus.
The college is utilizing Minneapolis-based Headwater Systems' Watchdog real-time locating system (RTLS),
which includes active 418 MHz RFID tags encased in black plastic. According to Christopher Barth, Luther's executive director
of library and information services, the tags will be affixed to about 75 key rings. Each ring will contain several master
keys and be welded to prevent the keys from being removed, then stored in lock boxes.
Fewer than 10 lock boxes
are located throughout the campus, and RFID interrogators will be installed in the ceiling above the cabinets containing the
boxes. Each interrogator includes a Power over Ethernet (POE) connection. "We also plan to cover strategic entrances
and exits across campus," Barth explains, "to gain greater tracking capabilities for the movement of keys."
Whenever a tagged key ring is removed from a lock box, the RFID system will record when that key ring was removed
from the box. The system, says Alex Fjelstad, CEO of Headwater Systems, will also send a text message or e-mail to alert designated
Luther staff members of the key ring's removal. The interrogators throughout the campus, says Barth, will record when
the key ring passes within range, providing a record of the rings' movement.
The Watchdog tags have a battery
life of up to seven years and emit an RF signal at preprogrammed rates, HeadWater Systems reports, ranging from once every
10 seconds to once per hour. The receivers can detect tag signals from as far away as 300 feet, and the system calculates
the location of the tag to within a few feet of its actual position.
Headwater Systems has developed proprietary
Web-based software that runs on a PC and lets users access data online to check the locations of tagged items at any given
time. This software also correlates the RFID tags' unique ID numbers with information about each key ring, such as the
building or buildings for which a particular ring is designated.
Source: RFID JOURNAL
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