SandLinks designs and engineers the next generation of active RFID network technologies, based on an ultra-low-cost system-on-a-chip (SoC). The SandLinks Ant™ system includes smart, low-power active RFID (Class 4) tags, readers and software that communicate over high-performance UWB networks.

Ideally suited for Total Asset Visibility (TAV) and In-Transit Visibility (ITV) applications that demand real-time monitoring, uniquely cost-effective, technology from SandLinks represents a true paradigm shift – offering smart active RFID systems with dramatically lower total-cost-of-ownership.

SandLinks technology features a highly-scalable architecture - including small form factor tag with a lifespan of three years, advanced two-way communication, high-capacity secure read/write non-volatile memory, and integral sensor capabilities. SandLinks technology was designed from the ground up for harsh and distributed industrial RF environments, featuring full functionality over a wide geographical area, and unique reader-to-tag and tag-to-tag communication for increased reliability of asset coverage.

SandLinks Ant™ system’s readers and tags communicate using UWB which the FCC has granted as unlicensed free spectrum. UWB as means for radio communica­tions decreases interference, lowers transmission energy and, in localization scenarios, increases positioning accuracy. UWB radios do not use sinusoidal oscillators like conventional RF transmitters; rather, they transmit data in very short nanosecond-level bursts. These bursts, by virtue of their extremely short transmission time, have very wide band­width, and thus UWB signals share all the advantages of spread-spectrum for noise immunity and minimizing interference - by using many frequency bands the chances of encountering con­stant interference are lessened. However, unlike spread-spectrum, since all of UWB’s broadcast power is transmitted simultaneously, the power at any given frequency is extremely low. This means that comparatively high power can be put into a signal without affecting other devices broadcasting within range of SandLinks Ant™ system.