The term Internet of Things (IoT) was first coined by British entrepreneur Kevin Ashton in 1999, while working at Auto-ID Labs, specifically referring to a global network of objects connected by RFID (radio-frequency identification). Over the past 17 years IoT has risen to be a ubiquitous term for all connected things as part of the cyber-physical industrial revolution, while RFID has taken a back seat to connected sensors. However, recent developments are putting RFID back at the forefront of the technological movement it started. RFID is a system made up of electromagnetically responsive tags that can be picked up by specialised readers. Each tag can be embedded with unique information and attached to objects in order to track their presence and movement. To date, the RFID system has been somewhat limited to applications in which all tagged items must enter a “gateway” where readers are carefully positioned to pick up each tag’s signal as it […]