AUTOMATIC IDENTIFICATION AND DATA CAPTURE

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Have you ever noticed a black magnetic stripe at the backside of our credit card? A number of thoughts run through your mind. For what purpose magnetic stripe is used? What information this stripe contains? Is the information only being read or the encoded information is copied? And, if information is saved, what could be the consequences?
A thought like this inspire us to take a closer look at the card technologies and the family to which they belong- Automatic Identification and Data Capture technologies (AIDC).


What is AIDC?
Automatic identification and data capturing is a method of automatically identifying objects, collecting data about them and entering data directly into the computer system. All this process is done automatically without any human involvement. Human involvement is confined to a user scanning an AIDC equipped item which is bar coded.


AIDC TECHNOLOGIES:
Following are the various AIDC technologies:
• Barcodes
• Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
• Biometrics
• Magnetic Stripes
• Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
• Smart Cards
• Voice Recognition
• Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS)
• Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS)


BARCODES:
You must have seen bar-coded items in supermarkets. There are about 250 types of barcodes that have been designed till now. They may be 1D or 2D. Those which you observed on the goods are referred to as linear barcode. Standard of these barcode are published by AIM and are currently in progress at ISO.


Radio Frequency Identification (RFID):
This technology acts as the base in automated data collection, identification and analysis systems worldwide.
RFID obtains information on an item without making direct contact with the item. Depending on the technology variation used, reading and writing distances can vary from few millimeters to several meters.