RFID in Russia, CIS, Baltic States 2012-2022    By Dr Peter Harrop, IDTechEx

This article shares some of the research carried out for the new IDTechEx report, "RFID in Russia, CIS, Baltic States 2012-2022". This report analyses RFID supply and use in Russia and some of its surrounding countries with comparable total population but little more than one third of Gross Domestic Product GDP in total. They are the Baltic States, CIS and, because of its RFID significance, Bulgaria. The countries investigated are Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

Since Russia has larger present and future demand than all the others put together and, unlike the other countries, it is a world leader in some aspects and seeking to be a world leader in others, we look particularly closely at it, including providing ten year forecasts by application and more analysis. At the recent IDTechEx "RFID Europe" event in the UK in 2011, Vladislav Tropko, Investment officer OJSC of the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies Rusnano, the huge state investor in RFID and allied technologies, spoke on "Development of RFID in Russia". He noted that Russia is the 10th largest economy in the world by nominal GDP and the 6th largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). The economy of Russia will grow faster than the world's economy with high oil prices and investments being the key growth drivers. It will pass US$2.7 trillion by 2015. It has a population of over 140 million, 75 million being the educated labour force, and it has high consumer spending as a percentage of GDP. It has a diversified base in fundamental research with strong support from government: the Russian Academy of Science (RAS) is the leading science organization in Russia with 466 research institutes and 55,000 researchers, 61% having a PhD.

Rusnano has invested heavily in Russian manufacturer Systematica which plans to make 150 million RFID tags for sale in Russia in 2015. Its newest investment project is Plastic Logic. This will include building world's largest commercial printed electronics factory in Zelenograd. Plastic Logic does not yet make RFID but it has printed organic transistor technology appropriate to replacing silicon chips, creating a lower price, higher volume market for the simpler RFID tags. Rusnano and Plastic Logic have finalized details of a $700 million investment.

Although the USA remains the largest user and supplier of RFID in the world, RFID and industrialisation in general is succeeding in countries with tough government, consistency of purpose, little borrowing and large home markets. In this respect, we know of China but must now think of Russia gearing up to make and use RFID passport chips with 1.25 million transistors in them, huge RFID postal automation systems and a great deal in between. The big topic in Russia is what will replace the oil and gas income when it expires.

Overall, our research has involved interviews, recent conference presentations, web searches and examination of the world's largest searchable database of RFID projects, the IDTechEx RFID Knowledgebase which is updated continuously and currently covers 4390 case studies involving 123 countries, 4435 organisations and 770 associated slideshows and audio recordings.

All the territories covered in this report have RFID projects but the only type common to all of them is RFID passports. Several activities involve RFID devices monitored and passing between many of these countries - notably passports, RFID monitoring of the post both for performance and for transfer of funds, intermodal container security and tracking and the NATO supply lines to Afghanistan.

We find that security is high on the agenda and Russia has somewhat different priorities from the rest in its extensive use of RFID for public transport, including placing the world's largest ongoing order for 300 million RFID tickets yearly for the Moscow transport system. It also has unusual emphasis on libraries with over twenty already fully tagged - books, CDs and DVDs. Unusually for this part of the world, Russia is also placing particular emphasis on the use of RFID in retailing. Its ambitions in postal RFID are also of a very different order, with the avowed intention of putting tags on all 600 million postal items yearly. By contrast, several of the countries covered in this report, including Russia, are doing appreciable work on RFID in land and sea logistics.

For the size of their population and GDP, Ukraine is doing surprisingly little with RFID while Lithuania and Estonia are doing a lot. In the coming decade, we expect see a great deal of RFID adoption in the wealthier mineral rich countries in the region such as Kazakhstan.

In the next decade, the primary expenditure on RFID in this geographical region will continue to be in Russia. The four most important applications and formats all involve passive UHF and HF RFID in the main, in the formats of cards, tickets and labels - so no surprises there. Indeed, by the end of the decade, the mix of RFID in use will not be dissimilar from that in the world as a whole and the specifications will be the same.

Although the global value market for RFID will grow about five times in the next ten years, the market in Russia and the market in the other countries covered, taken as a whole, will grow much faster. Our forecasts do not show the plan of the Russian government to tag 600 million postal items yearly within two years, because we consider a somewhat longer timescale to be realistic for such a world first due to technical challenges. We see this happening later.

In this region we expect particular activity in Logistics & Postal, Financial, Security, Safety, Retail, Leisure and Passenger Transport & Automotive sectors with Mining, Chemical and Oil & Gas starting to be important.  Of the countries with the largest GDP in the region beyond Russia, we expect considerable activity in Kazakhstan, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Bulgaria to be particularly promising and even the laggard, Ukraine, with the third biggest GDP in the region will start to catch up in RFID adoption. View website: www.IDTechEx.com/Russia to find out more information and purchase the report.  Refer to next page

Milestones in three-dimensional measurement

By Ralph Weir, CEO, Phase Vision

The need for accurate measurement of objects with complex geometries has challenged engineers and designers over many decades.

Without it, it is virtually impossible to verify that items have been manufactured to the required parameters and tolerances, or to provide accurate data for reverse engineering or virtual testing - meaning greater expense on real testing in the latter case.

The 1950s saw the development of the first two-dimensional co-ordinate measuring machines (CMMs). The first three-axis models began appearing in the 1960s, with computer control available from the early 1970s.

In the early days, mechanical probes were fitted into a special holder on the end of the quill. These probes were physically held against the workpiece with the position in space taken from a three-axis digital readout or, in more advanced systems, being logged into a computer via a footswitch or similar device. However, measurements taken in this way were often unreliable, as machines were moved by hand and each machine operator applied different amounts of pressure to the probe or adopted differing measurement techniques.

A further development was the addition of motors for driving each axis. Operators no longer had to physically touch the machine but could drive each axis using a handbox with joysticks. Measurement accuracy and precision improved dramatically with the invention of the electronic touch trigger probe. Although still a contact device, the probe had a spring-loaded steel ball (later a ruby ball) stylus. As the probe touched the surface of the component the stylus deflected and simultaneously sent the X, Y, Z co-ordinate information to the computer. This meant fewer measurement errors caused by individual operators.

The next step forward was optical probes - lens-CCD-systems, which are moved like the mechanical probes but are aimed at the point of interest, instead of touching the surface. The captured image is enclosed in the borders of a measuring window, until the residue is adequate to contrast between black and white zones. The dividing curve can be calculated to a point, which is the required measuring point in space. The horizontal information on the CCD is two-dimensional (XY) and the vertical position is the position of the complete probing system on the stand Z-drive.

Some newer CMM models have probes that drag along the surface taking points at specified intervals. This method is often more accurate than the conventional touch-probe method and most times faster as well.

However, while very accurate, the main disadvantage with most CMM types is that the number of points that can be measured is limited, meaning to build a truly accurate representation of a large or complex component can take days, or even weeks. CMMs can also only measure objects no larger than their own dimensions. And with any contact-based measuring system, there is the ever-present risk of surface damage, particularly on softer metals.

The next generation of scanning, known as non-contact scanning, includes both laser scanning and white light scanning. Both methods allow many thousands of points to be taken and checked for size and position, with a 3D image then able to be created and transferred to CAD software to create a working 3D model of the part.  Non-contact scanning is clearly a must for any material which is soft or delicate.

Introduced in the 1990s, laser scanning enables the rapid and complete measurement of complex objects for the first time. This method scans a small area at a time by projecting a laser stripe which generates a point cloud.

However, the problem with this method is that it generates effectively a 'patchwork' of scans, and the alignment of these is difficult, and often time-consuming. Furthermore, results can be affected by inconsistencies in laser focus, detune and speckle, all of which mitigate against fast scanning of larger areas, to say nothing of variations in the process created by different operators or the effect of variations in distance between the scanner and the object.

White light scanning seeks to combine the best of both worlds in terms of speed and accuracy while being easy to use and allowing the scanning of large objects.

A white light scanner projects a "structured image" - typically containing the equivalent of hundreds or thousands of lines.  By projecting a series of these images, the shape of the object can be calculated using triangulation - just like a laser scanner, but perhaps 10 or 100 times faster.  Such a scanner can measure an area of metres in seconds - and, because the scanned areas are enormous, the need to align scan patches is greatly reduced.

The latest advances in this area are overcoming many of the challenges faced by the first white light scanners: the issue of 'stand-off distance' - the optimum distance between the scanner and object; the need to see into holes; the issue of shiny or reflective surfaces; and the ability to operate in a range of environments and lighting conditions.

All of these advances stem from maximising the "signal to noise ratio" of the scanning system. While the issues could in theory be corrected by either a brighter light source or a second camera, the additional noise of a brighter light or cost of a second camera make these solutions unworkable. Instead, it is through enhancements to software that real breakthroughs are being made - the latest systems use sine waves, which are smoother than stripes, eliminating the need for a second camera, reducing the triangulation angle, and enabling the scanner to see into holes. And stand-off distance is no longer an issue - the scanner can simply be moved further away from larger objects.

It is this versatility and accuracy which is seeing the new white light technology being increasingly used in applications as diverse as scanning of large aircraft wings and press tool analysis.

For further information, e-mail: k.cureton@phasevision.com or view website: www.phasevision.com  Refer to next page