With advances in radio-frequency identification, people can track just about anything these days – even turtles.
While many are familiar with the potential of RFID in supply chain management through its promotion by giant companies like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., there is another company in Bentonville that is taking RFID, along with other tracking solutions, to new and innovative levels.
Ken Trussell, 46, started Bentonville International Group Inc. in early 2007 and has been in the technology industry for more than 20 years.
"We think way outside of the box," said Trussell, president and CEO of the company. "We’re doing the things that people don’t typically think of as RFID applications."
For example, BIG began working with the United States Geological Survey in Henderson, Nev., last fall on an active/passive RFID-enabled tracking system to track and study the Mojave Desert tortoise.
Todd Esque, research ecologist for USGS, said the agency has made a "fairly large investment" in the study of the tortoises because they are an endangered species.
"Urban growth is very fast … and the tortoises are in the middle of that growth," Esque said. "One of the biggest questions we have about those animals is what goes on from the time they hatch from an egg until they lay eggs of their own. The problem is that there is no technology designed currently to do that. Our task was to use the RFID technology that BIG Inc. works with to adapt it to our problem."
He said the agency and BIG are in the middle of the project and are currently field-testing the prototype technology.
Remote passive transponders that are about the size of half-dollar coins are being used on baby tortoises because the transponders are smaller and don’t require batteries. Active transponders are typically used on adult turtles.
"These guys have also adapted it so that we can potentially use the active transponders on the little guys as well. We need to put something on them that won’t impair their movement, so they can act naturally.
"They’re putting prototypes on the table for us on a fairly regular basis. We’re seeing stuff that nobody else has seen, and we’re getting to try it out."
BIG also has worked on a project with AT&T Inc. William Hurst is a mobile solutions architect for a division of Dallas-based AT&T called Emerging Technologies. Hurst, based in northwest Arkansas, previously had worked with Trussell, who is from the Dallas/Fort Worth area, on other RFID projects.
In addition to using RFID technology for mobile commuting, AT&T began looking at designing an RFID starter kit.
"BIG packaged that up into a nice bundled solution to make AT&T’s RFID starter kit available for any of our customers looking at deploying RFID," Hurst said.
Trussell said BIG also offers RFID applications like supply chain management. It also uses GPS, GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), mesh networking, video surveillance, supporting network infrastructures and other visibility technologies to track assets.
(To view a list of patents applied for in Arkansas, click here.)
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