U.S. Army Selects Automated Tracking Solutions For Passive RFID Technical Engineering Services

Automated Tracking Solutions (ATS) announced that it was recently awarded a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) by the U.S. Army to provide passive RFID technical engineering services. The company also announced that it was granted a U.S. Patent dealing with the use of RFID technology and other technologies to locate and track assets, objects, and people. The BPA award is part of the Government's massive effort to provide a state-of-the-art, integrated structure for identifying, locating, tracking, and monitoring assets and objects throughout the Department of Defense (DoD). RFID will play a vital role in this effort. According to Dr. Fred Sawyer, President of ATS, "Our RFID patent relates to many of the technical matters in the BPA."

"Our foray into RFID technology didn't happen overnight," stated Dr. Sawyer. "We became involved with the technology over ten years ago when we were looking into the feasibility of using the Global Positioning System (GPS), inertial navigation, and RF transponders and readers to locate and track passenger trains. At that time, we saw the value of RFID for many other applications. Approximately five years ago, we integrated our years of knowledge and experience in RFID, systems engineering, electrical engineering, software engineering, and operations research to develop and patent the methods and apparatus that together we call the Assets Locating, Tracking and Surveillance System (ALTSS™). ALTSS™ is a user-friendly, elegant approach that ties together the front-end system of readers, antennas, and detected transponders with the customer's legacy or state-of-the-art back-end systems to enable the identification, locating, tracking, and surveillance of large and small assets and objects, and even people under certain conditions." "We have a total system that works right now," according to Dr. Sawyer.

"ALTSS™ can be configured and used beyond the container or pallet-level tagging applications for dock doors and conveyor belts making it ideally suited for item-level visibility during the ‘first and last mile' of supply chain operations," according to Dr. Sawyer. "We believe we have integrated the technologies into a patented approach that both our customers and our competitors alike can use. Using our approach, for example, would require little need for manpower-intensive handheld RFID devices in locating and tracking assets."

"Being selected for the BPA along with much larger and well-known competitors reflects the confidence that the Government has in our firm that we can handle RFID technology, associated technologies, and applications as well as or better than any other company in the world," stated Dr. Sawyer. "Also we have put together a world-class team that has years of experience in military logistics operations as well as large installations and integration of RFID equipment. We look forward to the challenges of integrating RFID technology into the Army's massive installed base and future base extensions."

Send inquiries to fsawyer@atsincorporated.com or call us at (301) 220-1137.