Due to rapid growth of Internet-of-Things (IoT), RFID has been increasingly used in business environment and people’s daily lives. However, the limitation of reliability impedes the development and application of RFID. Today, almost all reader antennas can only offer 2-axis polarisation, which has posed the challenge of unpredictability in reading tagged objects even within specified reading range. Thus, there are always dead zones that linearly polarised tag antennas cannot be read.

To address this issue, the LSCM R&D Centre has worked together with the University of Hong Kong and proposed a novel system that can boost and improve reliability of RFID reading rate significantly. The 3-axis polarisation technology is a ground-breaking concept that overcomes the shortcomings of conventional reader antennas, which are generally supplied with configuration of 2-axis polarisation.

In support of the government’s initiative to promote Hong Kong as Age-friendly City (AFC), the LSCM R&D Centre has collaborated with the Hong Kong Housing Society to boast AFC features in Clague Garden Estate (CGE) in Tsuen Wan. The project objective is to encourage seniors to embrace technology for social interaction and to develop user-friendly devices to monitor their health and well-being at home. To learn more about the LSCM’s technologies developed for this project, please read our previous E-Newsletter.

Updated work and achievement of the CGE project are listed as follows:

• Tsuen Wan district, which CGE has participated as a demo estate, has been accepted and certificated as a member of the World Health Organization’s Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities.

• The CGE was awarded as Best Silver Architect Finalist in the 3rd Asia Pacific Eldercare Innovation Award 2015 held in Singapore for its implementation of the AIP Scheme. 

• Orientation tours and trainings have been organised for 381 CGE elderly tenants and other interested stakeholders since the development of various technologies. The orientations and trainings have enhanced user knowledge and promoted a better understanding of the new featured technologies.

• To celebrate and promote AFC and Ageing-in-Place Scheme, an AFC launching ceremony cum carnival of Clague Garden Estate was successfully held on 7 March, which attracted 257 elderly tenants and collaborators attending the event.