Automated Gate Entry - Passive Credentials, Anyone Have Experience Here?

So to be clear your looking for an access control system to control gates via readers or long-range readers?

It can be done in a straightforward way.

With the typical ranges (~10' - 20'+) needed to read credentials on vehicles, UHF based credentials and readers are typically used (ie: NEDAP, HID) versus traditional 13.56 MHz or 125 kHz products.

Anyone with specific recommendations based on experience?

I have experience with NEDAP products and standard gates. In the big picture, you have 3 general options:

Short range (<1 foot)

Medium range (<4 feet)

Long Range  (>10 feet)

For 'short range' a standard HID 5375 Max Prox reader is the most painless. We have a half dozen of them at our entrance gates. The advantage to this is that they use standard credentials, so our employees only have 1 card to carry around from inside the building to outside the building. They are pretty cheap (<$900) and install easy.

For 'medium range', the only thing that I've found is the combination of a 5375 and a POWERED HID credential. They look like a garage door opener, because they have a battery inside. You use that credential to scan to a 5375 reader and you get about 4 to 5 feet. The downside is that the credentials are expensive, about $50 a PIECE. So, if you have a lot of employees, its sort of a non starter.

Long Range is where NEDAP really shines. They have a ton of product series but the Transit is what we used. Inside the Transit series, there are 2 models. One that is '15ft' and one that is '33ft' (approximately)

We installed them at a treatment plant where large trucks were coming in and out. The hope was that the reader would pick up the truck along the road and the gate would begin to open before the truck had to stop and block traffic. Actually ended up working out pretty well.

Keep in mind, however, with the  NEDAP, that the ranges are Line of Site.. You really need to put them up on a pole 10 ish feet in the air, so that 15ft range is actually only about 8 feet from the base of the pole (remember Highschool Geometry?).  We tried to install one of the 'smaller' 15ft readers at a high end home, but couldn't get the read distance that we wanted from the base of the gate to satisfy the customer. Ended up changing to the Big reader. 

Also, the NEDAP credentials aren't cheap..  $30 to $50 each. They have a bunch of styles, from super heavy duty that bolt onto the outside of bulldozers to suction cup that stick on windshields. 

I think that for most people, the 5375 and standard prox cards are best.  If you are on Iclass, HID makes that R90, the big reader that is Iclass only.  I think that IPVM did a range read test report a few years ago.

If you're on prox and you have an employee in a wheelchair or other mobility problems, or you have a small fleet of commercial vehicles, then you could keep a small stock of the powered credentials on hand.   We haven't found this to be necessary though.  But, we have been slowly changing key employee entrance doors to 5375 readers to help accommodate people in wheelchairs. You don't get 4 feet of read range with a 5375 and a standard prox card, but I typically see reads of 12 inches or so with them in the real world.

If you run a trucking yard or your fleet is predominately made up up large industrial vehicles, then you probably want to go NEDAP.  A neat feature of NEDAP Transit readers that they don't make very clear is that A: they will run on 12v dc and B: they have a relay inside the reader. So, if you don't have composite cable out to the gate, and you don't care about a true access control integration and you just need a really long range gate opener, you COULD power the reader off the gate power supply and tie the relay to the opener and have a self contained system with no access control back end system.   

If there’s the opportunity, consider using dual technology HID cards, iClass for building access and UHF for gate. This way the end-user presents the same credential for all access. We used this strategy when migrating from 125khz proxy to iClass (matching internal number), this way we didn’t have to coordinate the issue of new cards with the deployment of new readers, seamless process and experience for staff.

I have not used them yet but checked them out a few times. 

http://infinityrfidinc.com

AWID also makes some good products to achieve this and not near as expensive as NEDAP. AWID had the stick on tags for your windsheild. The HID is great but you still have to typically role down the window unless you have the UHF option. One thing to remember about UHF is how you hold the card. Water is the biggest enemy of UHF.