Summary

In this chapter, you learned about the international, regional, and national standards organizations and regulatory authorities, as well as pan-industry organizations. You read about their efforts to standardize and regulate RFID technology and support and promote the use of this technology throughout various industries and supply chains.

In the first section, you learned about standards developed by the ISO and IEC. (I hope that you remember what those acronyms stand for!) These two organizations formed the Joint Technical Committee 1 to provide technical standards for various areas of information technology, including RFID. The ISO and IEC developed many data standards and air interface protocols for RFID, and you certainly should remember at least ISO/IEC 18000 Parts 1–7, where Part 6 (A, B, and C) is related to UHF.

Next, you found out that the frequencies around the world were allocated by the ITU and that the world is divided into three regions. Region 1 consists of Europe, Africa, part of the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union; Region 2 includes the Americas; and Region 3 includes the rest of the world. The ITU also has other functions such as governing and improving telecommunications and radiocommunications around the world, publishing standards and recommendations, and other activities.

In the next section, you learned about the UPU, which regulates postal communications and services. The UPU also has developed standards for RFID that were presented to the ISO and were used as a basis for some of the ISO/IEC RFID standards.

Following the international organizations, you discovered many regional organizations. In Europe, there are organizations such as CEN, CENELEC, CEPT (including ECC and ERO), and ETSI. ETSI is the authority that regulates RFID systems including communication and allowed transmitted power. In the United States, the main organizations are the FCC and ANSI. The FCC specifies the operations of RFID systems and limits for transmitted power.

You also learned that in China, RFID is regulated by the SAC, which has assigned a temporary frequency band for UHF. In Hong Kong, RFID is regulated by the OFTA, and in Japan it is regulated by the MPHPT. You also learned that the frequencies used around the world for RFID applications differ and that these organizations pose different limits on transmitted power.

In the next section, you learned about various organizations and groups that are focused on the AIDC and RFID industry, such as GS1, EPCglobal, and AIM Global. The EAN.UCC became GS1, which now standardizes and manages barcode systems as well as an EPC numbering system for RFID. You also recognized different EPC formats and learned about the specifics of different types such as GID, SGTIN, SSCC, GIAI, GRAI, GLN, and the DoD Construct.

At the end of this chapter, you also discovered various safety regulations regarding personnel safety and radiation exposure safety for humans and devices. You learned about organizations that publish standards related to workers' safety, such as OSHA, ICOH, ILO, and WHO, and organizations that produce codes for the safety of electrical equipment and buildings, such as NEMA, NFTA, and UL. Some authorities take care of human exposure limits to RF and other radiation, such as the FCC, ANSI, the military through HERO, and so on. Finally, you discovered the ratings of explosives and the power limits to prevent possible detonation.