CAEN RFID Gates and Antennas for Contactless Access
Increasingly, ski regions integrate RFID technology in ski passes so that customers don’t need to take off their gloves when they are passing an access point to fumble for the ticket in their pockets. Carrying the RFID ticket in their arm pocket instead, skiers simply walk through RFID gates. But how can a ski slope operator make sure that only authorized people are entering the slope? CAEN RFID has provided a solution for this problem.
- Customized UHF RFID access solution
- Two-gates-access
- Two reader modules and four antennas per gate
- Improved ski pass capture
25 Mar 2024 - RFID Ticketing System at Passo Lavazè Cross-Country Ski Center
RFID Access to Ski Slopes
Capturing every single ski pass when there are several visitors passing an RFID gate is difficult. CAEN RFID was approached and asked to provide a solution which guarantees that only authorized visitors obtain access. The ski area in question receives around 14,000 visitors a year. The old system was based on NFC technology which created bottlenecks when accessing to the ski slopes because people used to have the NFC tags not in their pocket or they had to remove gloves to pick it up and put it in contact with the reader. Secondly, it was often necessary to have an operator to manually scan the NFC cards.
Thanks to CAEN RFID’s solution this problem was solved. The customized solution contains a Tile reader which programs the UHF RFID ski passes; Two gates are built with a Hadron module each. The first gate manages 2 antennas, the second gate manages 4 antennas.
Capturing Every Ski Pass
The solution revolves around the notion that ski passes will be read twice as skiers pass through two gates. The first gate is 1.5 meters wide gate and uses the Hadron reader with two antennas. After purchasing the day or week pass, all visitors pass through this gate. After only a few meters there is a second gate which is five meters wide. It consists of the Hadron reader with 4 CAEN antennas. This solution allows skiers to access the ski slopes faster without wasting a lot of time queuing, thus having a more enjoyable experience.
Hardware for Automated Access
The Hadron module is a high performance 4-port embedded reader which connects to four QuadIP antennas. These antennas have circular polarization, so their read range is not affected by the tag orientation. The antennas are placed around the gate: one is positioned at the top pole with a 45° angle, one antenna on the left pole at mid-height, one on the right pole at bottom-level and one, also on the right, at the top. Every RFID tag that passes is read, leading to a much more secure access solution for the customer.
