RFID system optimization for item-level pharmaceutical serialization

A pharmaceutical company facilitated a program to serialize some of their products through the use of RFID tags at the unit-level. However, the system implemented on one of their packaging lines was unreliable. We have developed a laboratory test system that physically simulates the packaging line in order to find a working solution without any interruption to ongoing production. In this paper we discuss the methodical and analytical optimization steps we followed to find a combination of RFID hardware and software parameters which led to acceptable and repeatable performance (>99.5% write/lock/read success rate for a high speed packaging lane) within company requirements and physical limitations. The solution involved modifications of the tag placement, antenna type, reader output power level and low level reader protocol for different Miller modulations compared to the original implementation. Although the solution was first found and tested in a laboratory setting, it was later validated on the actual packaging line in the factory.