POC of RFID application in forest sample zone investigation

Abstract

For understanding the ecological behavior of species for afforestation and growing condition of each forest land, it is necessary to widely establish permanent sample zone. However, traditional field investigation process has lots of shortcomings, like identifying the sample tree from the marking label being difficult, the paper document being too heavy to carry, and errors occurrence when keying in the data into computer for further application. Therefore, the purpose of this proof of concept (POC) is to verify that RFID is applicable to the investigation of forest sample zone, capable of enhancing the efficiency and preciseness and reducing error. This POC is divided into three stages: (1) performing basic performance test of RFID equipments; (2) examining the developed prototype system and performing scenario simulation test; (3) performing field test at the sample zone. From the testing results, it is shown that introducing RFID into forest sample zone investigation is really applicable and can indeed improve the investigation process to enhance the preciseness and efficiency as well as reducing human error. It might be concluded that HF frequency band is a better choice for the time being, but near field UHF tag is the future consideration. © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2009.