As the variety of applications using Gen2 RFID continues to expand, often in unexpected directions, Alien and its partners saw a need for the ability to adapt off-the-shelf readers to new applications. The ARCA kit was created in response to this need, enabling Alien’s partners to quickly deliver more value for emerging applications like apparel inventory management, industrial manufacturing and IT asset tracking.

With the ARCA kit, “our channel partners find that they can quickly deliver new features they need to penetrate new applications,” says Scot Stelter, director of product marketing for Alien. “This highlights the continuing trend away from the lab and toward market-driven commercialization of RFID.”

Alien developers selected Ruby, an object-oriented programming language for use in the kit because it allows users to rapidly develop cross-platform applications. When coupled with the Alien Reader Protocol, Ruby provides a feature-rich, highly adaptable platform for implementing RFID solutions. Among the functions that can implemented through Ruby are RFID data pre-processing, application-specific triggering modes and custom communication channels with server-side applications.