- Introduced Zahir Abji, CEO
and Co-Founder of Guard RFID Solutions Inc
- Introduced Guard RFID
Solutions Inc. and the markets to which they offer solutions
- Told of his family’s risky
and dangerous journey from India to Tanzania
- Transitioned into Zahir’s
work that helped revolutionize global emergency response and logistics,
Part 2 of 2
Mobile Data International, MDI, was one of those brilliant
companies that sprung up, did significant work, was bought out, and melted into
another brand. MDI gave police and firefighters the ability
to communicate through a mobile computing terminal in their vehicles. This was a great achievement… unless your rap
sheet was coming over MDI’s mobile terminal.
 |
| Zahir Abji, CEO and Co-Founder of Guard RFID Solutions Inc |
Zahir helped MDI develop mobile
computing used by well-known global logistic companies. He managed design for terminals used in
taxicabs and recommended and developed one of the first handheld terminals capable
of transmitting data, opening the gate for smartphones.
Running operations in Japan,
Europe, Middle East, and Singapore with leading-edge technology, reliability,
six sigma; becoming head of Research and Development and manufacturing for
Motorola Wireless Modems; Chief Operating Officer; President for other
companies providing hardware software, and interfaces with ERP systems; all of
this coupled with market growth; these deep and broad experiences go into the company. The roster of Guard RFID executives and board
members runs with likewise experience.
Guard RFID’s customer oriented
global view has generated some significant work to support standards. Zahir
explains, “The customer who has global operations will be uncomfortable in the
absence of a framework of standards.
This is why we are involved in both IEEE and ISO. We helped the IEEE Standards Committee create
the 802.15.4F standard.”
The
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.15.4F standard
states: "To
provide a standard for low cost, ultra low energy consumption, flexible and
highly reliable communication means and air interface protocol for Active RFID
and sensor applications. The air interface should be able to support a wide
range of needs for which Active RFID systems can be useful and enable improved
performance and flexibility for future mass deployments of Active RFID systems
around the world." http://www.ieee802.org/
Guard RFID insured that their physical
layer is included in that standard.
Zahir commented, “Because of the attributes, our physical layer is a part
of that standard. One could say that we
donated that physical layer royalty-free, without any license to the IEEE. We also realize that IEEE is only one of the
vehicles that’s looked at from a standards’ perspective.
“ISO appeared to be much more
known and is respected on the non-healthcare side, especially in industrial
areas, and it decided to adopt the same technology as the IEEE Standard to be
included in the ISO 18000 – 7:2014 standard.
Dalibor Pokrajac, our Executive Vice President of Engineering, was a
driving factor in both cases. Again, royalty
free standards are vital for adoptions and assists customers with global
operations in selecting technology sources.
“Guard RFID’s corporate
knowledge, capability, and technology platform has allowed us to make major
contributions because of the manner in which our technology is developed. Healthcare tends to associate 433MHz with infant
abduction. That is within our capability
but we are in manufacturing and Defense as well. We have deployed tens of thousands of tags,
helping customers with return on investment and efficiencies with personnel, materials,
tools, equipment, and finished goods.
“One place we believe we have
an advantage is the power required to broadcast over a specified range. Our tags can be smaller than WiFi because
WiFi takes a comparatively larger battery due to much higher transmission power
required to achieve the same range.”
When asked about the
competition of other technologies in comparison to 433MHz Zahir responded, “Beside
lower power requirements, there is a huge difference between UHF lower
frequencies and frequencies above 1GHz.
UHF frequencies are very long wavelengths. Physically that means lower
frequencies have longer range and perform better around large metal
surfaces. UHF has greater penetration.
Frequencies above 1 GHz do not perform this way. It’s just nature. Requirements for longer range, great
performance around metal surfaces, better penetration, and inclusion in both
IEEE and ISO standards, those are Guard RFID strengths.”
I asked Zahir to provide some
closing thoughts. He concluded, “There are
reasons that our technology has been adopted by these leading standards
organizations. It shows that Guard RFID’s
technology is superior to many other solutions out there.”
