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USTRANSCOM Alphabet soup: Identification Technology

  • Published
  • By Bob Fehringer
  • U.S. Transportation Command Public Affairs
SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. --  Techies will love this week's acronyms since they involve computer chips, codes, satellites and who knows what else in the realm of computerese. 

But then again, those who live for the next issue of Computer Digest most likely already know and use these terms regularly. So, for those who crave an understanding about what we speak, U.S. Transportation Command presents the following explanations.
AIT, or automatic identification technology, identify, track, document and control material, maintenance processes, deploying and redeploying forces, equipment, personnel and sustainment cargo. 

This suite includes linear bar codes, two-dimensional symbols, optical memory cards, satellite-tracking systems, contact memory buttons and RFID tags. 

RFID, or Radio Frequency Identification tags, which have been around since the 1980s, are small devices that are affixed to objects such as cargo pallets, containers or individual items and which store information. 

Readers, both stationary and hand-held, read and write information from and to an embedded chip in the tags. The tags are read remotely when they detect a radio frequency signal from a reader. These readers then display tag information or send it over a network to back-end systems. 

Active RFID tags, which contain an internal battery with up to eight years of life, can be read over long ranges (100 feet or more). Active RFID tags contain transportation information and support in-transit visibility. 

Passive RFID tags consist of a computer chip attached to small antennae. They contain no battery; the tag "reflects" an ID number back to a reader. They have a shorter range of one to three feet and can be used to support business process enhancements, such as improved materiel receipt. 

Private industry uses RFID tags--active and especially passive--as well as other AIT extensively to improve the asset visibility and in-transit visibility of their supply chains.
Based on the success of these technologies in the commercial sector, the Defense Department, led by USTRANSCOM, has been implementing RFID and other AIT to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its distribution system. 

USTRANSCOM uses AIT to achieve better visibility of its shipments. There is an extensive active RFID infrastructure in place at strategic ports worldwide. 

This allows USTRANSCOM to know when shipments arrive and depart these ports, and this information is fed to USTRANSCOM's Global Transportation Network, an automated command and control information system that provides an integrated system of intransit visibility information and command and control capabilities. 

(This is a weekly column from U.S. Transportation Command Public Affairs) 
Acronym suggestions? Contact Bob Fehringer via e-mail @ Robert.Fehringer.ctr@ustranscom.mil