Ubisense and Alien Technology: RTLS at a leading car manufacturer

On July 10th 2008, a joint press release was made by Ubisense and Alien Technology on the deployment of an RTLS and RFID solution at a leading car manufacturer. This solution has provided automatic component and vehicle identification and location.

At the test site, it is critical to register the exact part numbers of critical components (for example air bags) as they are installed in each car. To achieve this automatically while minimising human interaction and the chance of error or omission, Ubisense integrated standard Alien RFID readers into its Location Platform. This allows each assembly station to recognise the car through its industry standard VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) as it reaches the station and independently verifies which component has been added through the RFID integration. The Ubisense system automatically determines which car has entered a station, as the system is able to track and visualise each car along the assembly line to within 15cm.

Richard Green, CEO of Ubisense, said “Combining RFID technology and precision RTLS has the potential to revolutionise automotive production. Our engineers have been working with leading automotive manufacturers to develop this comprehensive solution and the feedback from our customers about the combination has been fantastic.” Stephen Crocker, Director, Sales/Channel Management EMEA and India, Alien Technology Corp.said “We see many more opportunities for this combination of technologies across a variety of industries.”

This shows the current trend in the RFID market which is not about the technology but about solutions to business problems in which part of the technology answer involves RFID.