RFID Label: Technology Firm Enters Next Year With Security Contract For U.S. Military
Lowry Computer Products is positioned for a banner year in 2008 after receiving a $1.6 million federal appropriation to develop a base security system for National Guard bases in Michigan, and a major contract with the state of Hawaii.
The Selfridge Army National Guard base near Mount Clemens, Camp Grayling and Michigan National Guard headquarters in Lansing will receive the base security system.
Lowry's headquarters, just south of Brighton in Green Oak Township, function as corporate offices and the research-development and training site. Lowry manufacturing plant is outside Minneapolis and the company's laboratory is in Irvine, Calif.
The small but growing firm, which employs about 200 people at the three sites, has been heavily involved in the development and manufacture of bar code and wireless systems. It is now working on a system that uses radio frequency identification technology, which encapsulates large amounts of data on a tiny microchip.
Mike Lowry, the company's president and chief executive officer, says that in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, implementation of such technologies is vital to national security.
"We feel it's of critical importance, and one of the first things the 9/11 commission did was to say we need a better way to communicate to first responders,'' he says. The system has myriad potential uses, and one Lowry has developed is already enabling the U.S. military to keep better track of activity on military bases and, with it, to tighten security.
"We are enhancing the security system at Fort Bragg (in North Carolina) by using RFID technology to track vehicles,'' says Steve Lowry, company vice president. "The system is used for staging and repair purposes and to validate that a driver is who he says he is and credentialed to drive the vehicle.''
Each RFID label is composed of a microchip and antenna that send a signal to a receiving unit, called a scanner or reader. The microchip contains all the information about a shipment's history: time, date and location of its origin; where it's been along the way to its final destination; and any special handling requirements.
The technology incorporates biometrics - the science of measuring and analyzing biological information obtained via fingerprints, eye scans, facial patterns or voice recognition - for authentication purposes. "The (RFID) reader says if the driver will be allowed or not allowed on base, and will also track the vehicle on base, and it automatically records the time in, time out and other information,'' Steve Lowry says.
The system designed for Fort Bragg is designed to keep track of the 250,000 visitors who pass through the gates each day. Sensors tell guards when vehicles are approaching a gate, cameras take images of drivers' faces and license plates and the hand-held scanners compare information on the visitors' ID cards to criminal databases. Anyone attempting to bypass security would be stopped by special drop-arm barriers and hydraulic nets designed to crush and immobilize a vehicle.
The devices are now at all 17 of the base's gates and scan each driver's license or Department of Defense ID card. The information is compared against five databases within three seconds.
Mike Lowry says he hopes to sell the system to the military for use at other bases in the U.S. and abroad.
Among other potential uses of RFID technology are "protection of Michigan's critical infrastructure, for instance at Metro Airport and at nuclear power plants,'' Steve Lowry says.
Livingston County Economic Development Council Director Fred Dillingham says aggressive marketing strategies by local companies such as Lowry are the key to the county's future.
"The thing we're seeing is a lot of - and we have every reason to believe is going to continue in '08 - is our companies are upgrading their technology to diversify their portfolio, and that in itself is creating new investment in Livingston County,'' Dillingham says.
One example is Lowry's contract with the Dole Co., the world's largest producer and marketer of fruits and vegetables. Lowry worked with Dole to come up with an RFID system that tracks produce by tagging and scanning it all along the supply chain, from sorting plants to warehouses and cooling centers.
The system instantly provides such information as what farm the produce came from, when it was harvested and stops along the way to its final destination at the grocery store. If a contamination problem occurs, the company can find the source within one hour, protecting the consumer and preventing uncontaminated produce from being destroyed unnecessarily. Officials are confident it will prevent a recurrence of such problems as when critical days passed before an E. coli outbreak was traced to a California cattle ranch that contaminated a nearby spinach field.
Lowry also recently secured a contract with the Hawaii Department of Agriculture to develop an RFID system for food traceability "from field to fork.''
SOURCE: Lowry Computer Products and Michigan Live LLC