Pentagon nearly doubles RFID budget

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WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- The Pentagon is nearly doubling the amount of money it is spending on radio frequency identification technology to track shipments of supplies to Iraq.

A statement Monday from Savi Technology said that the Department of Defense had increased the value of its contract with the firm by over $200 million to $424.5 million and extended its duration by two years to Jan.1, 2008.

In a statement, the U.S. Army's Information Technology, E-Commerce and Commercial Contracting Center said: "The extension of the ordering period and raising of the contract ceiling is necessary in order to continue to provide active (radio frequency identification) tags and associated supplies and services for shipments of materiel to the Middle East in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Radio frequency identification, or RFID, technology consists of tags that emit and recieve tiny radio signals. Attached to containers or even individual supply items, the tags can be detected and interpreted by special readers and their signals fed into software programs that track, manage and secure the military's supply chains and the materiel they contain.