The new solutions are designed for tracking the locations of vehicles at manufacturing sites or parking lots, and for preventing the theft of parts from rental cars.

Dolphin RFID has developed three new solutions that are intended to track cars in parking lots, ensure that no parts are swapped out of rental cars while they are out of the lot, and provide mustering visibility to ensure that all workers leave a building or worksite in the event of an emergency.

A solution known as Dolphin Vehicle Tracking & Valet Parking Solution (DVTVPS) has been trialed by an Indian truck manufacturer that has asked to remain unnamed. That company, located in the city of Pune, is now planning the timeline for a permanent deployment.

Dolphin developed DVTVPS as an alternative to a real-time location system (RTLS) that employs active RFID tags, since such a system can be expensive. The solution consists of a Star Venus passive Near Field Communication (NFC) RFID tag that is attached to a truck's windshield, according to Suresh Sawhney, Dolphin RFID's president and CEO. A worker would tap an NFC-enabled Android smartphone against the tag prior to moving the vehicle after it has completed assembly. The Dolphin Mobile Asset Management System (DMAMS) smartphone app is designed to capture the tag's unique ID number and forward that data to Dolphin's Edge Wizard middleware (hosted on a cloud-based server), which would link the ID to information about the vehicle and where it should be stored. The Edge Wizard middleware would capture data from the company's enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, specific to the parking slot to which the vehicle is assigned. The app would then display the storage location so that the driver would know exactly where the truck needed to be parked.

Next, that individual would drive the truck to the indicated space, by following the app's driving directions. At that space, another NFC RFID tag (either Dolphin's DNFC-050 or DNFC-075) would be attached to a beam that runs in front of each parking space. The driver would tap the smartphone to the parking space tag, as well as to the windshield tag, in order to create a record on the server of where the vehicle has been parked.

For the DVTVPS trial involving the Indian truck manufacturer, the ERP system was not integrated with the Edge Wizard middleware to enable this function, but if the company proceeds with its deployment, that integration will be carried out to enable the app to instruct drivers where to take their vehicles. In the case of the trial, drivers tap the windshield and proceed to a parking space of their choosing. They then tap the tag at that space, as well as the one mounted on the truck's windshield, thereby creating a digital record indicating where the vehicle has been parked.

Dolphin has also developed an ultrahigh-frequency (UHF)-based Rental Car Asset Management (DRCAM) solution for car-rental agencies that is currently being tested by several businesses in Saudi Arabia. This solution, Sawhney says, enables the companies to better manage the parts on vehicles returned by customers.

The idea for the parts-tracking solution, Sawhney says, was sparked by a mistake that a rental agency in the United Kingdom made regarding his rental car contract a few years ago. After returning his vehicle, he later received a message from the agency claiming he had returned the car without a spare tire that it had previously contained. Sawhney told the agency that it was mistaken, and that he had never removed the tire. Although the confusion was eventually resolved, he says, it inspired him to consider options that would make it easier for agencies to track a vehicle's many parts. In the Middle East, especially, he says, agencies have indicated that they need help ensuring that customers do not remove any tires, batteries, alternators or other parts and replace them with older or lower-quality versions.

The rental agency attaches UHF RFID tags to spare parts, such as tires, GPS devices, stereos, batteries and alternators. Each tag has a unique ID number that links to the corresponding part's description and serial number stored in Dolphin's Edge Wizard software running on the cloud-based server. Users download the DRCAM app on their smartphone (the app is presently available for Android phones, Sawhney says, and is expected to become available for iOS devices sometime in the next three months).

Dolphin provides an ATID AT911 UHF reader with a built-in UHF interrogator, or it can supply a smartphone paired via a Bluetooth connection to an Embisphere embiVentory handheld reader or a similar device. The hosted Edge Wizard software stores data indicating which parts are married to which specific car. Omni-ID FIT 400 tags are applied to engine parts, TransLogik Tire Patch tags are affixed to tires, a Star Venus tag is attached to the windshield, and Alien ALN-9640 Squiggle tags are applied to plastic parts. During the pilot, users are reading tags using an AT911 handheld computer with a built-in UHF reader.

When a customer returns a specific car to the rental agency, a worker can use the UHF reader while that customer is still present, quickly reading the tags on the windshield (identifying the car itself) as well as on tires and other parts. The reader sends the captured data to the hosted Edge Wizard middleware, which can then forward that information to the DRCAM app running on that worker's smartphone. The employee will see a list of red-highlighted items that should be on the vehicle, and as the tags are read, those items will turn green. Anything that remains red is, therefore, missing. This rental car parts-tracking solution is now available, Sawhney says, though it has not yet been formally named.

In addition, Dolphin commercially released its new Real Time Emergency Mustering System (DEMS) last month to ensure that employees with RFID-tagged staff badges can be accounted for quickly in an emergency. With this solution, one individual (known as the warden) is assigned a group of employees for whom he or she is responsible for mustering in the event of an evacuation or other emergency. The system works with either UHF tags or NFC HF tags. In either case, a DEMS app installed on a smartphone manages the data for the individual. If such an event occurs, Sawhney says, the only action required by the warden would be to pick up his or her mobile phone and exit to the mustering point. The phone app indicates which employees in the warden's group were in the building at the time of the event. The warden then meets with individuals at the previously assigned mustering point, tapping his or her NFC-enabled phone against the badges of the personnel present at that location, or reading the badges via a UHF RFID reader linked to the phone via a Bluetooth connection. The list of missing individuals then shrinks to include only those whose badges are not present.

The warden can select the name of a missing employee and automatically call that individual's mobile phone to learn where he or she is. The app's mobile functionality allows the phone to store the names of individuals who should have reported to the mustering area, even if the Internet connection within the building goes down.

The mustering system does not yet have end users, Sawhney says. However, the company is currently in conversations with several potential customers throughout North America, Europe and India.

Dolphin announced the release of all three new solutions at this year's RFID Journal LIVE! conference and exhibition, held last month in San Diego, Calif.