AirGATE Moves RFID ‘Smart Buckle’ into Fast Lane

July 27, 2004 – The AirGATE Technologies subsidiary of the X-Change Corporation (otc bb: XCHC) has accelerated the development of its ‘Smart Buckle’ child safety seat prototype as a result of broad national interest in products that enhance child safety in automobiles.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, more children are killed as passengers in car crashes than from any other type of injury. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that nearly 12% of children who weigh less than 60 pounds are riding completely unrestrained in their safety seats. Additionally, a growing number of infants are mistakenly left in parked cars every year, sometimes with devastating results. AirGATE’s engineers hope that the RFID ‘Smart Buckle’ they are developing will help parents prevent both of these dangerous situations. The AirGATE child restraint buckle will be outfitted with a miniature RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag that will transmit a low-powered radio signal to a reader, triggering an audible warning to the driver of the car when it detects that a child is riding in a safety seat whose straps are not properly buckled, or if the safety seat buckle is not disengaged after the car is parked and the ignition is turned off, indicating that the child may have been left in the seat.

AirGATE has applied for a patent for its ‘Smart Buckle’ product and it has moved up its engineering development schedule with the goal of having an early working prototype of its RFID-enabled ‘Smart Buckle’ system ready to demonstrate to consumers, media and child safety seat manufacturers in mid to late August.

Visit www.AirGATEtech.com for more information.

SOURCE AirGATE Technologies