Using RFID to output reliability indicators in PC refurbishment

In order to foster a market for reuse, environmental impacts must be examined across the entire life cycle of a product. For products such as Personal Computers (PCs), research suggests that the reduction of manufacturing burden through lifetime extension is a preferable means of mitigating some of the adverse effects associated with the total life-cycle impacts associated with these products. As a means of overcoming distrust in the secondary PC market, information can be provided to buyers about the quality of a system, and the value can be determined in the context of market forces. The work presented here outlines a process for the storage and extraction of information which utilises the environmental thermal conditions of a PC throughout its lifetime to indicate the expected continued reliability of the system. The requirements for a technological solution for extraction of this information are presented, and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is suggested in the context of its capability to fulfil these requirements. The work presents the process for development of an RFID system for extraction of data, including extensions to existing RFID protocols, allowing the transmission of the volumes of data which need to be considered in extracting enough data to characterise PC lifetimes. The use of load characterisation for reduction of total data volume is presented, and the final solution presented here performs load characterisation in hardware. While the results suggest that the developed technology is not perfectly appropriate for the function outlined, there is considerable potential for further developments in the area.