Type Privately held Website www.guardrfid.com Founded 2007 | Industry Active RFID Solutions Headquarters Delta, Canada Number of employees 30 | |
Key people Zahir Abji, Founder, President & CEO Profiles | ||
Guard RFID Solutions Inc. provides Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) through active Radio-frequency identification (RFID) solutions for the protection, identification, tracking and location of people, products or assets in almost any type of environment. Headquartered in Delta, British Columbia, GuardRFID has created active RFID solutions with Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) comparable to passive RFID solutions. Founded by experienced industry veterans, Zahir Abji and Ally Mullani in 2007, Guard RFID Solutions Inc. was established to provide inexpensive active RFID technology on a reliable platform.
Contents
An engineering company, GuardRFID develops active RFID tags, readers and middleware that are used to deliver secure and easy-to-install Real Time Locating System (RTLS) solutions to Healthcare, Industrial and Enterprise consumers. Guard’s technology uses the 433 MHz frequency band for communication between its tags and infrastructure. The system also uses the 125 kHz frequency band to create capture zones at portals such as exit doors. This facilitates applications that require immediate detection of tags at such portals, such as a security system application.
GuardRFID Solutions was twice selected as one of 25 British Columbia companies "Ready to Rocket”", first in 2009 and again in 2010 by Rocket Builders, a management consulting firm servicing the technology industry. Each year, the "Ready to Rocket" list profiles companies with the greatest potential for revenue growth.
Technology
GuardRFID began by introducing the smallest and lowest priced active RFID tags available. The company has created an affordable single-use disposable infant and patient tag to support hospitals with their infection control procedures. Due to the company management’s experience in healthcare, the company first launched the TotGuard solution for infant security, SafeGuard for patient protection and AllGuard for asset management. Each of these products is deployed on the Argus technology platform.
The Argus technology platform was developed to deliver fast tag data acquisition with protocols to ensure consistent data acquisition without adding complexity for system integrator. In mid 2008, the company began deploying its Argus technology platform into the industrial space, expanding into enterprise, manufacturing, warehouse and unique use cases. Argus consists of software, locating algorithms, database management and RFID hardware components. Due to the platform’s ability to read hundreds of tags per second, the Argus platform has become Guard’s core technology.
The other key component of Guard’s technology is the active RFID tags. Guard’s advanced active RFID tag technology allows long read-ranges and the ability to perform in RF-hostile environments, even when placed on metal surfaces. These tags are designed to communicate bi-directionally with the Argus platform and can hold additional features depending on the enterprise application. The tag enclosures are constructed from durable polycarbonate, and are considered to be the smallest and lightest available with a battery life of up to four years.
GuardRFID also manufactures tag readers, controllers and exciters that form the active RFID infrastructure within a building or area. These components can be installed with either wired or wireless Ethernet communications.
Solutions
GuardRFID’s solutions can track, locate and protect equipment, materials, patients and personnel for enhanced workflow, real-time monitoring and security solutions on their flexible Argus platform.
Due to many years of industry experience, GuardRFID’s first RTLS solutions were healthcare based. Currently, the healthcare product range includes AllGuard for asset tracking, TotGuard for infant security and SafeGuard for patient/resident safety. In 2009, GuardRFID integrated its active RFID platform and its software applications with video surveillance provided by Milestone Systems, thus allowing instantaneous visibility during a security breach.
GuardRFID has also broadened its field by making available ruggedized, industrial based solutions. As examples, the company's active RFID platform is currently used for intermodal container tracking, presence detection for lean manufacturing and inventory control.