For over half a century, the Walt Disney Company has used cutting-edge technology to create the best theme park experience possible.  Some recent rumors suggest RFID is at the center of current upgradesThe Disney Blog speculates that with the help of an RFID tag on a guest (or in their ticket), their Disney experience could be made even more unique.

In its most basic form it would be Winnie the Pooh saying your name in the attraction. But the technology allows Disney to do some really amazing things too. Fast Pass? A thing of the past. Via RFID Disney now knows exactly when you entered the queue, how many people are in the queue, and how fast the attraction is loading. Care to register your preferences? Disney can know if enough people who prefer a certain type of entertainment are in an area and dispatch that band to play. This just scratches the surface too.

RFID is currently being used at Disney parks to help you cut back on all the clutter you have to bring with you and be able to find everyone you came in with:

The versatility of RFID allows the guest experience to be significantly enhanced, providing an all-in-one solution. The cashless payment solution can be linked to the ticketless RFID device, along with hotel room access, lockers, guest demographics, and even a guest’s personal preferences.

RFID is also being employed at many locations for guest tracking and child locating. Using an external interface, parents, children, and groups can locate the members of their party via kiosks or handheld devices.And parkgoers overseas won’t miss out on the chance to use technology to improve their experience.  Disneyland Paris is planning on opening a portal of mobile information quickly and easily accessible with a mobile device.  By scanning a two-dimensional smart bar code, the parkgoer can get “up-to-date information in real-time throughout the visit for show times, special restaurant and gift shops offers, and more.”  To learn how RFID and barcode solutions can bring some magic to your business, contact RACO Industries at 1-800-446-1991 or visit us at www.racoindustries.com.

Is your R110 XI RFID Printer not printing correctly?  Are you seeing an increase in blank labels and label waste?  A simple calibration may improve your printer's performance.  RACO's Technical Service Manager walks through the process in this short video:

To encode the tags we are using a Zebra R110Xi RFID printer. 

The configuration is for vendor compliance in a 3PL or third party distribution center.  The tags will be read as the SKUs are moved through the dock doors and read again as they enter their vendor destination.

Setting up the reader

The XR400 has 4 possible antenna pairs.  Two antennas, a Tx and Rx.  Each pair can be one choke point or portal.  A shipping dock door for instance would be a good choke point.  Using epcSolutions software simplifies the setup process since it is designed for vendor RFID compliance.   There were three main troubleshooting issues we ran into while configuring the software to start the reader polling and setting the proper RFID tag type.

The first problem was actually finding the reader on the network in order to enable us to log into the Administrative Console via its IP address a web browser.  The “default” IP address was not correct and even after resetting the XR400 it did not take on the default IP.  By plugging the XR400 into a switched network and running Wireshark on another computer, we were able to see broadcast packets coming from a 192.168.0.73 address. Putting that address into a web browser got us into the Administrative Console.  The default user name is admin with a password of change. 

The second problem was that the epcSolutions software was unable to “start the reader”. Through some trial and error we discovered that the XR400’s polling was the issue and had to be disabled in the Administrative Console in order to let the software start the polling itself.  With polling enabled the software is unable to start the reader and gives an error that says, “Symbol reader returning error status 0x80”.  The polling option is under the “Scan Control” menu item.

Next the tags we needed to read were Generation-2, Class-1 (G-2, C-1). 

This is setup within the XR400 Administrative Console, under the “Read Point Class” menu option.  Then assigned to an antenna pair/portal.

After clearing those hurdles the tags are now being read and all the lights are green.  One of the major problems that must be dealt with when configuring RFID is that tags are automatically read and will continue to be read every 1 or 2 seconds for as long as the tag remains within the polling area.  Therefore, whatever data collection software is used as an RFID manager it must be ready to manage multiple reads.  

The little screencast Video shows how often or quickly the tags are read and reread.

http://www.screencast.com/t/nQ3TyCV82