EPC Tag Data Standard (TDS)

GS1's EPC Tag Data Standard (TDS) defines the Electronic Product Code (EPC), including its correspondence to GS1 keys and other codes.  TDS also specifies data that is carried on EPC-encoded RAIN RFID tags, including the EPC, User Memory data, control information, and tag manufacture information.

The GS1 EPC Tag Data Translation (TDT) Standard complements TDS by providing EPC encoding/decoding rules in a machine-readable format, as a set of TDT definition files (one per EPC scheme) and associated tables that are used in conjunction with these.

Finding the right product faster is becoming increasingly important in RAIN RFID implementations, which require optimised encoding and capture of supplemental AIDC data, for example:
•    Perishable supply chain partners need to find products with a specific Expiry, to remove expired products or ship older product first
•    Recall operations need to find products of a specific Lot/Batch

Such use cases benefit from improved alignment of EPC/RFID encodings with the GS1 element strings encoded on GS1 barcodes, particularly in more “data capable” 2D barcodes.

TDS 2.0 is a major update that caters to these emerging requirements and provides many new features, including:

• New "EPC+" schemes to simplify encoding/decoding and improve barcode-RFID interoperability
• A new, date-prioritised, SGTIN scheme, "DSGTIN+"
• Optional encoding of AIDC data after the EPC within EPC/UII memory bank
• Various improvements to PC/XPC and TID
• Updates to Packed Objects
• User Memory support for ISO/IEC 20248

TDS 2.0 support for encoding of AIDC data in EPC/UII memory – as an optional alternative to User Memory – enables Gen2 Inventory backscatter of AIDC data, satisfying use case requirements for optimised capture from RAIN RFID tags.

At the same time, TDS 2.0 continues to support the use of Packed Objects (added to TDS 1.5 in 2010) to encode AIDC data in User Memory.  EPC schemes defined in TDS 1.13 continue to be supported in TDS 2.0.

Native interoperability with barcoded GS1 element strings and GS1 Digital Link URIs is boosted by not needing to know the length of the GS1 Company Prefix for new EPC+ encodings.

TDT 2.0 complements TDS 2.0 with a modernised feature set that includes:

• JSON and XML TDT definition files - underpinned by JSON Schema / XSD validation - for all EPC schemes defined in TDS
• GS1 Digital Link URI representation
• Support for optional "+AIDC data" introduced in TDS 2.0
• Documentation of both pre-TDS 2.0 and post-TDS 2.0 approaches (with and without GCP length-based partition tables)