Typical Applications

The application of this technology is very wide.  Without restricting applications, the following applications are given as examples:

a) Private or legal investigation of people conducting business or private traveling.  The FM Tag could be hidden in the luggage of a suspect person and, upon returning home, the FM Tag retrieved and the city-based path plotted.

b) Cargo port inspection.  It is well know that only 5% of maritime cargo containers are physically inspected at major seaports.  The point of departure, point of temporary disembarkment and point of final destination could form the basis for a port authority to decide whether or not to conduct an inspection of incoming shipments.  A radio receiver FM Tag could be permanently mounted on every maritime cargo container, reset at the point of departure and interrogated at the point of arrival.  Reliable worldwide tracing information will allow port authorities to make better decisions. It should be noted that, for maritime applications, the LORAN-C frequency band can replace or be added to the FM band and any other bands scanned by the receiver.

c) Rental car companies apply insurance according to countries being visited.  This reality is even more pronounced when the vehicle crosses a border between countries with significant economic differences (e.g. USA and Mexico, Western and Eastern Europe, African countries, etc.).  In this special case, the existing vehicle’s on-board radio receiver could be used substantially “as is”, with minor modifications to interface the storage and reader circuitry required to provide the functions of this technology.  When the vehicle is returned, the rental company downloads the captured frequency spectrum data and uses it to determine where the vehicle has traveled during the rental period.

d) Livestock animals and bio-alimentation.  Increasingly in order to control animals spreading disease (e.g. mad-cow disease), international regulations demand traceability for all such livestock.

In this technology, an FM Tag could be attached to each animal with recording set to preset time intervals of 1 week or longer to preserve battery power.  The FM Tag data could be retrieved and stored, for example, when the animal is received at an abattoir. It is also envisaged that, where the FM Tag is worn by an animal or person, the FM Tag could be powered by means of a thermocouple source of energy, or other source such as those currently used in pacemakers.

e) Migration control.  Since the FM Tag is so small and of low weight, it could be installed on a bird's leg or foot (like a ring FM Tag as used hitherto).  A biologist or other expert then could retrieve the FM Tag periodically, in the usual way, and retrieve the data to determine where the bird had been since the FM Tag was installed or previously checked.  This would enable more accurate tracing of migration activity than existing techniques.  Of course, use of this technology to track migration and so on is not limited to birds but could also be applied to the tracking of other living creatures.

f) Immigration control.  Temporary high-risk immigrants could be mandated to carry a temporary passport equipped with an FM Tag.  The immigrant is to report himself periodically to authorities.  During such reporting, the data stored in a hidden tag could be retrieved to trace the immigrant’s travels between each visit.  The immigration authorities will then have valuable information.

g) Release of prison inmates on parole.  Inmates on parole must stay within a pre-determined geographical area.  An FM Tag could be hidden within their ID card, used to trace information between every report or visit to the parole officer.  In the event that someone has a court order that restricts them to stay at pre-determined distances away from someone’s residence (often the case on judgment against a violent ex-spouse) a low-power FM transmitter with specific RDS can be installed at the restricted residence area.  Such low-power FM transmitters are commonly used today to broadcast local weather, traffic, retail (for example “house for sale”), religious (eparish mass on Sundays) and other services using low power transmitters.  The person that is under a court restriction must carry their ID card at all times, and must report to authorities periodically.

h) Postal service quality control.  Every postal service uses multiple points of data entry, all networked to a centralize database. However, there is no means of double-checking that such an in-house tracking system is working and safe from human mistake and manipulation.  The quality control department will then insert a FM Tag on selected and/or random packages.  Upon arrival of the package at its destination, the tag is retrieved and tracing information is compared with an internal tracking system.  Disparities could then be addressed and corrected.

i) Dangerous Hazard material (HazMat) in transit.  Regulations impose detailed tracking requirements to follow the HazMat at all times and provide a “paper trail”.  Transportation companies must obey regulations but currently compliance is not strictly monitored by the authorities. Government transport authorities may require the use of an FM Tag on every HazMat container.  The transport authority would then be able to trace the path taken by the HazMat, allowing them to enforce the regulations.  A particular case might apply to tunnels and bridges.  Most HazMats are not allowed to use such critical and vulnerable transport infrastructure. Nowadays, most tunnels have private repeaters to radiate broadcast signals within the tunnel.  The tunnel information could then be transmitted via the RDS and recorded by the FM Tag.  It should be noted that, for HazMat traceability, size and battery dimensions are not important.  In such a case the FM Tag could be set to record the radio spectrum at 10 second intervals when in transit.  When equipped with a motion sensitive accelerator, the FM Tag can record “moving” versus “standstill” information.