Introduction Radio Frequency oscillation rate from 3 kHz to 300GHz.

. The first and most basic thing one would experience is an AM/FM radio. We will have a brief explanation of how this (a radio) works and connect it to the current technological use of RF regarding data exchange and transmission.

Parts of Typical Radio System: 1. Trasmitter radio station which provides RF signal a. Modulator audio is encoded and is converted into a radio frequency signal. b. Upconverter unpconverts a band of frequencies into a higher frequency band(RF frequency band required). c. Amplifier RF signal is amplified which is then sent to the transmitter antenna for transmission over a broader area. 2. Receiver receives RF waves and converts the information with it into a usable form. a. Tuner locates the desired RF signal and converts it to IF signal. b. Demodulator reverse of the modulation proces in number one. The RF signal is decoded back into original form. c. Amplifier signal is amplified.

When talking about sending and receiving wireless data, the source and destination is any wirelessly connected device while the encoding and decoding methods are the digital modulation formats like BPSK, QPSK, QAM among others. Also, the radio frequency bands and allowable transmission power are restricted by law.

RF TECHNOLOGY DEVICES

RFID use of radio-frequency electromagnetic fields to transfer data for identifying and tracking tags.

Current trends: 1. Medical field

a. RFID enabled pharmacy system August 2013, medications were tagged and tracked with RFID while using cloud based software to monitor the medications as they move through the supply chain, hence, reducing man hours, increasing patient care and saving money. 2. Sports and Fitness a. Athlete Tracking System implementation of ultra wideband technology for accurate real time tracking, results and performance data. This technology had just been implemented by an Asian football team last July 2013 3. Fashion and Clothing Merchandise a. Apparel RFID purchasing and Inverntory System- May 2013, customers can purchase anywhere within the establshment using a mobile device account. No more handheld RFID readers because of a fixed infrastructure reader antenna . The first clothing company to implement such technology is American Apparel. 4. Transportation a. Bus Fleet RFID Tracking System-August 2013, Bangalore India, RFID technology is used to track buses in the bustling city of Bangalore to check if the bus drivers are adhering to their specified schedule and to help them address specific traffic problems and to improve route analytics. 5. National Defense a. RFID Tags for Munitions Destruction Project-March 2012, Kentucky, RFID tags is to be used in the Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant (BGCAPP) project for piloting the safe neutralization of the Blue Grass chemical weapons stockpile.

Hardware Limitations: 1. Smart tag technology not yet perfected-20% of manufactured tags are defective. 2. RFID antenna signal obstacles-metal surface and water may corrupt data transmission by either absorbing or ambient reflection of the signals. 3. Nylon conveyor belts in warehouses can disrupt tag transmission. 4. Cost of purchasing components for implementation of RFID is still high.

Wifi a technology which allows a device to exchange data or connect to the internet wirelessly.

Current trends:

1. Education a. White space spectrum for wireless internet connection-March 2013, in South Africa Google spearheaded the use of white space spectrum which is not yet controlled by carriers for the purpose of bringing wireless broadband to 10 schools in Cape Town area. 2. Connectivity for All a. Balloon powered internet for everyone-Google with its new Project Loon which takes advantage of high altitude positioning for navigating these Balloon wife providers which will give wireless connection to internet deprived places.

Hardware Limitations: 1. 2.4 Ghz band is prone to interference and so antenna degrades in performance especially in places crowded with microwave ovens, bluetooth, video sender devices. 2. Limit of range of antenna because wifi is no exception to the physics of radio wave propagation with frequency band. 3. Wifi is still relatively slower than its wired counterpart. (compare 1-54 Mbps to 100Mbpsseveral Gbps)

Bluetooth - a short-range wireless communications technology using short-wavelength radio transmissions from 24002480 MHz) creating personal area networks (PANs) with high levels of security. As of today, it is able to reach data transfer speeds of up to 24Mbit/s, can cover distances up to 100m and consume power as low as 1mW.

Current Development: 1. Medical Field a. Pill tracking system aimed to make sure medications are taken by patients, sensors are embedded onto pills which send Bluetooth signals when powered by electrolytes from the stomach 2. Wearable technology - Because of its low energy consumption and easy pairing, Bluetooth is becoming the standard in wearable tech. Applications include shirt integrated speakers, smart watches, and augmented reality devices.

Hardware Limitations: 1. As data transfer rate is increased, so does power consumption. More power is also needed to transmit to farther distances. Trade-offs between the three is unavoidablei. 2. Interference - The Bluetooth signal was designed to change its frequency many times per second to reduce this interference, but if enough devices are trying to use the same small stretch of bandwidth, interference is inevitable.

Global Positioning System (GPS) - is a space-based satellite navigation system that provides location and time information in all weather conditions, anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. Current Development: 1. Additional Satellites/Signals - By 2014, the USA will launch additional GPS satellites called GPS III. These new satellites will add three new civilian signals to that L2C, L1C, and L5 making GPS systems stronger, more accurate (with accuracies up to 1m), and interoperable with other positioning systems worldwide.

Hardware Limitations: 1. Clock Accuracy GPS satellite clocks are typically as accurate to within 10 nanoseconds and GPS receivers up to within 100 nanoseconds. Although these can be considered very small, it still introduces minute errors in location data.

Sources: http://www.bluetooth.org http://www.ehow.com/list_6495445_limitations-bluetooth_.html http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/global.html http://www.atomic-clock.galleon.eu.com/support/gps-time-accuracy.html http://www.wkmn.com/newsite/radio.html http://www.google.com/loon/ http://www.theguardian.com/technology/wifi http://www.rfid24-7.com/