Electronic identification systems: state of the art and their further development

(P)rocesses to automatically recognize the identity of an animal are a breaking technology. Electronic identification systems show great performance potential at this time. They are not only used for process control on farms, but can also be successfully implemented for control tasks such as animal or disease monitoring, or administrative purposes. The ISO Standards 11784 and 11785 set the standards, on the one hand, for clear numeric coding valid worldwide, and for compatible systems from multiple manufacturers. A broad range of transponders and transceivers are now available on the market for domestic animals and agricultural purposes. Further developments are leading to more complex transponders with additional abilities, such as mechanisms against fraud, programming with variable data, the reception of measurement data through the integration of sensors, and the ability to identify a code even when more transponders are present. The technological advances, particularly in the smart-card area, lead to the expectation that many of the advances in this field will be applicable. The standards now under discussion for advanced transponders must ensure the compatibility of current systems as well as define the conditions for compatibility with future systems. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.