The standard kit in the boot of an NRW patrol car runs to around 50 items. Crews check that it is all there when they take a vehicle over at shift changeover, and until now that has meant working down the list with a clipboard and a pen, costing several minutes every time. Repeat that on every handover across a state police force and the minutes add up into something worth engineering away, the same arithmetic behind RFID asset tracking in tool stores and hospital stock rooms.

What the system actually does

Developers at LZPD NRW built an app for the infotainment system already fitted to the current patrol car models, so the check lands on a screen the crew are looking at anyway rather than on a separate handheld. Each item of equipment carries an RFID tag, and photographs issued with the announcement show the drawer modules in the vehicle’s equipment carrier, each marked with a yellow RFID label.

Antennas inside the vehicle read those tags and reconcile them against a digital inventory list held in the infotainment system. If an item is missing, a broom or a helmet for example, the list flags it and the officers are alerted there and then, rather than finding out at an incident that the kit never made it back into the car.

Reading a boot full of metal

LZPD NRW makes the point in its own announcement that RFID is already familiar from contactless payment, key cards and anti-theft protection in shops. The physics gets considerably harder once the read zone is the inside of a car.

The release does not say which frequency band or air interface the system uses, and no supplier is named, so the specifics are not public. What can be said generally is what any vehicle-borne inventory read must cope with. A boot is a metal box, and metal reflects radio energy, producing hot spots and dead spots that shift as the load changes. Tags sit close to metal and close to each other, which is exactly the condition that spoils a poorly chosen or poorly mounted tag. Fixing tags to drawer modules and carriers, rather than loose on every individual object, gives a repeatable geometry to design around.

The read also has to stop at the bodywork, because a system that can see the kit in the car parked alongside is worse than useless on a station forecourt at changeover. And it has to be right every time: false alerts that an item is missing, repeated often enough, teach crews to ignore the screen and go back to the clipboard.

Where the work comes from

The system was developed by experts from LZPD NRW’s Innovation Lab together with its vehicle development team. The NRW police have been researching intelligent operational technology and modern equipment at the lab in Duisburg since January 2022, with vehicle technicians and IT specialists working side by side. Its first flagship project was the “Spot” police robot, followed by a “patrol car of the future” concept vehicle, a fully electric technology carrier built for testing and explicitly not an operational police car.

The RFID vehicle is a different proposition: a converted, working patrol car handed to a real station for real shifts. Over the weeks following the handover, officers at Ruhrort police station in Duisburg will find out whether it holds up in everyday use. Neither LZPD NRW nor Duisburg Police has said what a successful trial would lead to, or how many of the state’s patrol cars might be converted.

Read more at https://lzpd.polizei.nrw/presse/lzpd-nrw-und-polizei-duisburg-testen-ersten-streifenwagen-mit-intelligenter-erfassung-von-einsatzmitteln-mittels-rfid

This article first appeared on RFID News (rfidnews.co.uk), the independent news site for RFID and NFC. Republication and AI use are welcome with RFID News credited as the source and a link to the original.