ILP Becomes Exclusive Distributor of Surfaceslab Smart Surfaces in North America
Intelligent Loss Prevention (ILP), a provider of secure merchandising solutions, has added to its portfolio RFID-based item-level tracking solutions, through a partnership with Surfaceslab, a Portuguese technology firm that develops smart surfaces enabling objects to communicate via RFID. Surfaceslab's products are designed to help locate and identify products, monitor stock levels, protect against theft and increase customer interaction. Under the terms of the agreement, ILP is the exclusive North American distributor of Surfaceslab technology.
Surfaceslab's product lineup of smart surfaces includes the Smart Panel, which leverages EPC Gen 2 ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID technology and is designed to identify and quantify, in real time, hanging apparel placed within its reading area (see RFID News Roundup: Surfaceslab Intros RFID-enabled Smart Panel for Hanging Apparel). Each Smart Panel has an embedded antenna, and is connected to a UHF RFID reader (or to a multiplexer, and then to a reader).
When tagged products are placed in or moved out of a Smart Panel's reading zone, the software updates the location information about each tag ID read and collected. Each panel's reading zone is well-defined; the reading area depends on the panel's dimensions, but the read distance out from the panel is 50 centimeters (20 inches).
The tags—such as those from Alien Technology, Avery Dennison and UPM RFID—are normally placed on clothes. The Smart Panel also works with various fashion- and apparel-tagging approaches currently available on the market, such as RFID tags embedded in hangtags, care and textile labels, and hard tags.
Through the partnership, ILP expanded Surfaceslab's RFID applications to include anti-theft capabilities. According to ILP, the addition of anti-theft capabilities enables the smart surfaces to send notifications to a smartphone, tablet or computer in the event of atypical product removal (such as a product sweep, when multiple items are removed). In the event of a potential theft, the immediate notifications can enable a store's staff to respond in a service-oriented manner. According to ILP, the notification parameters can be specified by the retailer.
RFID News Roundup | June 16, 2011