Alien Technology Announces Improved RFID Reader

Alien Technology has announced an improved, ultra-high performance Gen 2 enterprise category reader platform, the ALR-9900+. It is a global enterprise category reader platform with significant performance and feature improvements over its predecessor, the ALR-9900.

The reader platform supersedes all previous regional-specific enterprise category readers with an operational frequency band ranging from 866MHz (Europe, Middle East and Africa) to 954MHz (Japan). The ALR-9900+ is the parent model to the ALR-9900-EMA, which was specifically designed for compliance with the ETSI EN 302-208-2 regulatory compliance standards, more commonly known as “the four-channel-plan.”

Technological advancements led to a global reader architecture, enabling a single hardware platform to be factory configurable to accommodate world-wide regional compliance profiles. Additionally, developments resulted in performance improvements as well as the incorporation of several innovative features, further complementing the Higgs-3 RFID tag IC, bolstering security and authentication applications and supporting all extended and customized Higgs-3 IC features.

Beyond the advantages of a global hardware platform, the key differentiating attributes of the ALR-9900+ over its ALR-9900 predecessor include a vastly improved receiver circuit design with multiple stages of configurable digital filters and high gain, low distortion amplifiers, resulting in a more sensitive receiver.

This design provides more read range margin, which is advantageous for applications that are using ultra-high sensitivity tags in challenging environments at extreme distance or where tag backscatter signals are constrained due to sub-optimum conditions – including use with smaller item level tags which often have limited performance.

In addition, enhancements have been implemented in the interference rejection filters, improving upon the reader's ability to operate in noisy, real-world, dense reader environments and to continue to optimize read performance. This, along with improvements in the ability to correct and compensate for reflections due to sub-optimal antennas or antenna cables, helps to minimize unwanted reflections to alleviate unwanted noise and enhance the received tag signal.

Alien Technology, www.alientechnology.com