The DynaLogger is a battery-powered UHF device that captures temperatures and humidity levels at preset intervals, or based on thresholds, and transmits all data related to those measurements when interrogated via RFID.
Dynamox was launched in 2007 as an automation technology provider for marine and logistics customers. In 2014, the company began developing RFID-based technology for tracking goods and vehicles, says Guillaume Barrault, Dynamox's CEO and co-founder, and last year it teamed with semiconductor company EM Microelectronic to use its EM4325 RFID chips in its new data loggers. Barrault and Alexandre Ferreira co-founded the firm to use their electrical engineering backgrounds. Barrault has a Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering and a master's degree in ocean engineering.
The development of the data logger resulted from what the company felt was an absence of secure, low-cost options for unalterable sensors that could track both temperature and humidity levels. For instance, Barrault says, USB-enabled data loggers can store information that users can then access by plugging them into a computer device, but that data can potentially be changed.
If, for example, a logistics provider wanted to erase an indication that temperature or humidity levels had exceeded acceptable thresholds while products were in that company's hands, it could simply change the sensor results in the computer records. Bluetooth-enabled data loggers allow the capturing of data in a mobile device, but the Bluetooth sensor would need to be physically turned on to operate properly, and the data might not be encrypted. RFID, on the other hand, allows data encryption — however, passive RFID systems without a battery would only provide sensor data collected at the time of an RFID interrogation. Active or battery-powered RFID sensors can be high in cost, Barrault adds.
