Overview

Learning Objectives

• Understand basic physics concepts such as energy, force, field, power, speed, work, physical quantity, and units.

• Understand electricity, magnetism, and electromagnetism.

• Understand electromagnetic waves and the basic wave properties such as frequency and wavelength.

• Identify different kinds of electromagnetic waves in the electromagnetic spectrum.

• Learn how to perform some basic math operations: powers of 10, logarithms, and some unit conversions.

• Identify the difference between barcode technology and RFID.

Introduction

What do the U.S. Department of Defense, Wal-Mart, and you have in common? Radio frequency identification, or RFID! Whether you choose to know about it or not, RFID affects you and the world around you in a ubiquitous way. So, congratulations that you have chosen to learn about it.

The first thing to understand about RFID is that it is an application of physics to the extent that the core functioning of RFID technology is governed by the laws of physics. You don't need to have a Ph.D. in physics to become a successful RFID professional, but an understanding of the physics of RFID will enable you to design, deploy, and operate RFID systems in an optimal way. In this chapter, we attempt to ease your way into physics as it relates to RFID by explaining some basic physics concepts. As they say, mathematics is the language of physics, or of any science for that matter. The good news is that you need only very simple math to understand RFID: powers of 10, logarithms, and some unit conversions.