USDA Approves First UHF RFID Tag for Animal Tracking and Identification System; Implantable RFID Tags to Mark Breast Tumors

USDA Approves First UHF RFID Tag for Animal Tracking and Identification System

The agricultural department says an EPC Gen 2 RFID tag from Eriginate can serve as an alternative to low-frequency RFID tags for use with its National Animal Identification System.

January 7, 2010

RFID Journal - The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved a passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID tag for cattle tracking that will be used in conjunction with the agency's Animal Identification Number (AIN) system.

To gain USDA approval for is eTattoo RFID tag, Kansas startup Eriginate, owned by animal-tracking technology firm Herdstar, submitted data regarding the tag, along with a 14-page application. The EPC Gen 2 tag can now be sold in the United States to members of the cattle industry as part of the AIN system, and will compete with existing low-frequency (LF) button tags currently employed by ranchers and cattle auction companies to help track the movements and health of cattle.

The USDA's National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is a voluntary program intended to allow the tracking of specific animals by assigning each animal a unique AIN. The goal of NAIS is to be able to quickly access a record of every location where a particular animal has lived, in the event that contaminated meat or a sick animal is detected. Each registered animal is assigned a 15-digit identification number. The first three digits—840—represent the country code of the United States, while the final 12 make up the unique number assigned to the animal.

The tags used by NAIS participants need not include RFID technology, but could simply display the number printed on the front of a plastic ID tag or button. However, many are employing RFID-enabled tags to track the cattle as they move through the supply chain, typically with a handheld interrogator.

There are 105 million cattle in the United States, with approximately 10 manufacturers of RFID tags currently providing low-frequency RFID AIN button tags, according to Neil Hammerschmidt, NAIS coordinator with the USDA APHIS Veterinary Services. Those manufacturers, he says, have sold approximately 6.5 million AIN tags with or without RFID capabilities over the past three years. Hammerschmidt estimates that 4 million of these tags may currently be in use, mostly in cattle (though other animals, such as horses, sheep or pigs, can also be tagged), representing about 5 percent of all American cattle.

In April 2008, the USDA issued a seven-point plan to help it achieve its goal of enrolling 70 percent of all cattle into the NAIS program by the end of 2009 (see USDA Pushes Plan to Move NAIS Forward).

The reason UHF technology has not been included in the NAIS system before, Hammerschmidt says, is that RFID tag vendors had not produced a UHF tag for use with the AIN system—that is, with the 15-digit ID number. "We are technology-neutral," he says of the USDA, as long as the technology complies with a recognized ISO standard. The eTattoo tag complies with ISO standard 18000-6C, and it has enough memory to store other information in addition to the 15-digit number, though it is presently intended only to store the AIN.

The eTattoo tag fills a need in the cattle industry for a tag with a long read range, says Doran Junek, a member of Eriginate's board of directors. The existing LF button ear tags have a read range of 4 to 12 inches, and can be read with either a handheld interrogator or a fixed reader if cattle move down a narrow chute in close proximity to that device. Interrogators can also be utilized in the dairy industry, capturing reads of the animals' tags as they are being milked. Moreover, USDA veterinarians use handheld readers to capture a tag's unique ID number as an animal receives a vaccination...

Implantable RFID Tags to Mark Breast Tumors

The company's system would allow radiologists to inject a passive RFID tag into a patient's breast, to help a surgeon locate a lesion during a lumpectomy.

December 28, 2009

RFID Journal - SenoRx, a provider of breast cancer treatment and diagnostic equipment, is working to introduce an RFID-based system that will offer radiologists a new method for marking a tumor's location prior to surgery. The solution, according to the company, promises to reduce the risk of infection, while helping surgeons to locate lesions more accurately...

Health Beacons first approached SenoRx with the RFID interrogator and tag in August 2008. The system involves an implantable tag approximately the size and shape of a grain of rice, as well an injector to implant the tag, and a handheld reader provided by Health Beacons. The tag consists of an 134.2 kHz RFID inlay encased in glass and complying with the ISO 11784 and 11785 standards, and its glass exterior is surrounded by a steel coil, each end of which forms a hook. The purpose of the coil and hooks is to help prevent the tag from migrating within the body...