Container and pallet tracking
A warehouse stores goods on pallets and in containers, and each one has a place. Goods that sit idle tie up money. Goods that move when nobody planned a move may be on their way out of the building.
How the original system could serve it
Each pallet or container would carry a tag, programmed with its contents and its assigned place. The system could add more data to the tag as the pallet moved through the warehouse. It could hear the tags wherever it had a reader, so the host would know where each pallet stood.
When a pallet left its assigned area with no move scheduled, the system could alert the operations manager and security. It could also check pallets in and out as they came and went, with no counting by hand.
The jumboTag mounted on crates, pallets and other containers with its bracket. Field generators marked out zones. A tag's reply could name the field generator that woke it, so the host knew which zone held the pallet.
What a builder would need
A builder would need tags whose memory the host can write, readers to cover the building and field generators at the zones that matter. Host software would know each pallet's assigned place and raise an alarm on an unplanned move.
The rebuild's first milestone holds the core of this case: a tag carried between two zones, with the move showing on a floorplan. A warehouse would need many more zones and tags, and software that keeps each pallet's place and contents.
Building one today
Nobody has rebuilt the original hardware recently, so nobody knows whether the old files still make a working system. The TigeRFID project's study of the original found firmware for the sealTag only, and the rebuild's sealTag is a new design. A rebuild writes all of its firmware fresh.
The TigeRFID project is rebuilding the system from the ground up, for a complete beginner with free tools. To build your own, start at the TigeRFID repository, whose readme tells where the rebuild stands.
Nothing on this site says a rebuild may transmit on the original radios' frequencies as they are. Radio rules differ by country, and the TigeRFID project checks them before it chooses a rebuild's radios.
If you build one, or try, please report back in the repository's issues. What works and what fails both help the next builder.
Sources:
- the old site's Container and Pallet Tracking page and its featured-application box, as it served them until October 2026;
- the jumboTag page and the system overview on this site;
- the TigeRFID project plan on its main branch, for the rebuild's first milestone.