April/May 2002

Narrow-band network boost in new Datalogic system

A comprehensive new radio-frequency networking system built round proven narrow-band technology has been launched by Datalogic, the leading European manufacturer of data collection and communication systems. It is suitable for a variety of functions including RF-based warehouse management and depot control systems.

At the heart of the new STAR-System system is its Stargate RF base station, a narrow-band radio base station that allows data transmission between Datalogic RF devices and a host system (a standard Windows-based PC) via a wireless network.

 

It supports a whole range of radio-frequency devices, including pocket-sized "pen" terminals, handheld readers, and gun-shaped and pistol-grip devices, which together can read both linear and two-dimensional PDF417 bar codes.

A single Stargate base station covers an area of about 8,000 cu m outdoors; manages up to 2,000 mobile devices; and supports up to 255 simultaneous active clients in real time. Up to 16 base stations can be connected to a network.

The base stations are equipped to allow seamless active roaming, permitting operators to move about freely while remaining connected to the host application.

With the advent in the late 1990s of spread-spectrum RF technology (notably what has become 802.11b), some commentators were inclined to write off the then-established narrow-band approach; but in practice it has remained popular in many logistics and warehousing applications, and is given a boost with the new Datalogic system. Among benefits, it can offer better like-for-like coverage than spread-spectrum.

It is also good at avoiding the interference issues that have plagued some more recent systems. Rather than doing continuous polling, the Stargate base station is enabled each time a RF device sends a sequence of data. This means the radio channel is kept free when RF devices are not transmitting. It conforms with the European ETSI standard EN300 220-3.

Datalogic is providing a range of professional software tools for programmers familiar with both "object programming" and Windows 95/98/2000/ME/NT environments. At the heart of this is an Automation COM object, which can be used with both visual programming tools and Microsoft Office applications. This manages the RF based using a Datalogic CSMA/CA protocol.

• Datalogic has completely revamped its Dragon family of handheld laser scanners. The range now has enhanced multi-standard architecture based on a high-speed 16-bit micro-controller with 256 KB Flash memory and 20 KB of RAM. The company says it is now highly effective at handling in-field updates via a serial interface. The laser module has appealingly-named Puzzle Solver technology, said to provide unmatched reading performance on very damaged or poorly printed codes.