Michelin researcher honored for RFID achievements

Greenville, South Carolina - Dr. Patrick King, global electronics strategist at Michelin Americas Research & Development Corp., has been awarded the 2006 Don Percival Award in recognition of his work to develop and standardise Radio Frequency Identification tags for tyres.

The award is presented by AIM Global, the association for Automatic Identification and Mobility, and "SCAN: the Data Capture Report," a management and marketing newsletter of automatic data capture. The Percival Award acknowledges outstanding contributions to the advancement of automatic identification and mobility solutions.

In a written statement accompanying the award, AIM Global said, "Working together with the Michelin teams, industry and international organisations, Dr. King's vision and leadership has led to the establishment of a single tyre standard. He continues to work towards the development of global standards in the area of RFID applications, quality, and data content."

King said he was honoured to receive the award, adding that although it is presented to an individual, it "recognises the efforts of Michelin's entire electronics engineering team for years of research and their current support for a standardised solution for RFID automotive applications."

Engineers at Michelin have been working to support industry standardisation RFID tags for tires and other automotive applications since 2000, the company said. RFID technology uses a microchip and small antenna that can be embedded into a tyre during the manufacturing process to retain and transmit data accessible by a reader.

A recent consensus among industry stakeholders has proposed a harmonised data structure for RFID tags that would allow electronic product code information to be combined with traditional industry data, Michelin said.

From Rubber & Plastics News (A Crain publication)