Atlas RFID Solutions Completes RFID Drone Testing – Leads to Patent

Atlas RFID Solutions, the world leader in Material Readiness™ for the construction industry, has a patent pending with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the technology behind their Drone-Mounted Reader (DMR). The technology was rigorously field-tested in partnership with Bechtel, a global leader in engineering, procurement, and construction, on a large liquid natural gas processing facility.

The testing pilot consisted of a week of testing over seven laydown yards associated with a Bechtel project along the construction site. Drone-mounted RFID scanned the yards to identify location of equipment and materials. The results were impressive with a 56% reduction in sweep time and 22% increase in successful location captures.

Testing results not only verified the viability of the use of the Drone Mounted Reader in construction, but optimized flight specifications like flight height.

“Our collaboration with Atlas RFID Solutions supports the construction industry’s efforts to use new technologies in tracking and ensuring of the right equipment and materials are delivered to the site at the right time, improving delivery of projects to our customers,” said David Wilson, Bechtel’s Chief Innovation Officer. “Exploring convergence of technologies through application of our extensive experience in construction is another step closer to the jobsite of the future.”

Drone-mounted RFID reader technology will improve the ability to locate and manage critical construction equipment and materials in several ways:

-It will enable reading of every tag on a site to locate materials in the laydown yard and the construction workface even at an elevation;
-It will improve safety by eliminating the need for vehicle sweeps of yards / zones;
-It will increase the accuracy of location readings, as the drone’s position eliminates a lot of the “noise” from reads on the ground;
-It will allow for consistent and full-coverage sweeps via autonomous flight with pre-configured flight patterns (pilot is required to hold controls per FAA regulations).

With the new payload technology attached to a drone, it sweeps laydown yards to provide location updates for thousands of materials. This cutting-edge technology will free up resources and time—translating into cost savings and better safety.

“We saw a true need in the market not just to scan laydown yards more effectively, but to both increase the accuracy of locations and to extend the ability to read RFID tags at the construction workface,” says Jeff Burns, a product developer listed on the patent.

The focus of this technology is industrial asset location management—assets on site that are RFID-tagged and prepared for installation. With the construction industry looking to drones for aerial inspections, progress updates via photo, thermal imagery inspections and more, the DMR’s addition to the market is timely.

About Jovix and the Drone Payload:
Atlas RFID’s patent-pending drone (aka Unmanned Aerial System) payload was developed as a complete solution—that includes software integration and hardware. The drone conducts aerial sweeps over mega-sized construction laydown yards, and it is fully integrated with Atlas’s software set: Jovix. Jovix features outstanding complementary features for a wide variety of applications.    

The Jovix hardware and software is used on sites worldwide, and the industry-leading software includes a cloud-based web application, mobile applications, a vehicle-mounted reader, and gate readers. Jovix is designed to provide a complete Material Readiness solution from fabrication to material installation.

About Atlas RFID Solutions:
Jovix is an award-winning material readiness application developed by Atlas RFID Solutions specifically for the construction industry. Jovix combines web-based server software with mobile and auto-ID technologies to extend access to information to decision-makers in the field, as well as digitize and automate manual, paper-based data collection. Jovix provides value for Owner/Operators, EPC firms, contractors, fabricators, and suppliers by removing impediments to productivity that result from material management issues.

To learn more about Atlas RFID Solutions or how Jovix is used on more than 300 sites across the globe, and how it helps industrial construction projects and operating assets increase efficiency, protect schedule and reduce unnecessary costs, visit http://www.atlasrfid.com or call +1 855-568-4151 in the US and +1 780-952-5222 in Canada.