An EE Times item in the Jan. 27 edition of Information Week reported on the potential uses of RuBee, a new wireless networking protocol announced by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) last June.

 

IEEE describes RuBee (a.k.a. IEEE 1902.1) as “a bidirectional, on-demand, peer-to-peer, radiating, transceiver protocol operating at wavelengths below 450 Khz. This protocol works in harsh environments with networks of many thousands of tags and has an area range of 10 to 50 feet.”

 

EE Times reporter John Walko notes in the report mentioned above that RuBee looks promising as a way to fill in some of the gaps left by radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. More specifically, the new protocol could be useful for applications of “real-time inventory under harsh environments, even near metal and water and in the presence of electromagnetic noise.”

 

Walko notes in the report that RuBee’s main appeal lies in its ability to deal with harsh environments; “getting accurate RFID reads around liquids and metals has been the most significant obstacle to widespread, cost-effective deployment of the technology.”

 

Because RuBee operates at slower speeds than RFID, it is an alternative rather than a replacement—useful in situations where, since RFID doesn’t work, something slower but relatively comparable could be used instead.

 

IEEE’s RuBee working group will be meeting Feb. 20 in Boston, just before the RFID Smart Labels Conference kicks off. So watch for news about development plans for the protocol. Walko reports that already RuBee has some pretty powerful backers, among them retailers Tesco (in the U.K.), Metro (Germany), Carefour (France), and Best Buy; plus manufacturers and system developers including Hewlett Packard, IBM, and Sony.

 

RuBee-based produced are expected to become available in the next 12 to 18 months, Walko reports.