Drones with RFID Scanning for Medical Supply Chain
October 31, 2017 | Terry Sharrer
In most situations involving radio-frequency identification, a reader is a stationary appliance, and tagged pieces move past the reader—as in the “Easy Pass” toll road recorder and car mounted transponder. A well run medical materials department of a hospital has to keep track of thousands of supplies, and a good manager can locate things as needed. But will that remain for the hospital of the future, where autonomous operations are standard? If not, a flying drone may be the locator, which raises the signaling problem of the drone needing to locate tags and simultaneously locate itself. This piece describes how MIT engineers solved that problem. MORE
Image Credit: MIT