The aerospace industry has long been a pioneer when it comes to RFID research. Today, a pact between Airbus, MAINtag SAS and Tego will take that innovation to a new level. By early next year, thousands of Tego’s high memory tags will find their way onto aircraft parts across the Airbus A350 XWB fleet. Approximately 1,500 tags will be included on each aircraft, with the possibility of many more in the future. The seven-year contract is expected to be worth a minimum of $5 million for Tego.

The combination of MAINtag’s manufacturing capabilities and Tego’s high-memory chip provides the first standards-compliant, high memory and fully-passive RFID tags that can achieve Airbus’ goal of value chain visibility. The technology will allow Airbus to include a PDF of a product manual on the tag, as well as the complete cradle to grave maintenance history of aircraft parts, allowing for new cutting edge MRO applications.

The deal represents a significant breakthrough for high memory tags that Airbus and the aviation industry has coveted for years, and could take asset tracking to new levels in other industries.

“This is the first coming out party for the industry,” says Tim Butler, president and CEO of Waltham, Mass.-based Tego, which has been working on a high memory tag solution for several years. “Airbus has invested significant money in this space over the past several years and has been waiting for the ability to use high memory passive RFID tags on both pressurized and non-pressurized parts. We are excited to work with MAINtag to deliver the first flyable parts RFID tags that will allow Airbus and its suppliers to get RFID in the air quickly.”

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