vnunet.com:Baggage tracking set to drive RFID

Adoption of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags did not meet projections last year, but baggage tracking, fashion and smartcards will to drive growth this year.

RFID analyst IDTechEx says sale of one billion tags in 2006 was below forecasts but more than 1.7 billion tags are expected to be sold worldwide in 2007.

Report author Raghu Das says baggage tracking in airports is emerging as an RFID success story after initially being hampered by technical problems.

Das says one US airport has succeeded in overcoming poor read rates by using focused beams and believes this should lead to a higher proportion of the two billion bags that pass through airports being tagged.