Artificial bread crumbs is the working title for a product under development by Zahhak Provisions, LLC, a company that specializes in high-tech equipment for exploration and extreme climate survival uses.

Artificial bread crumbs is an experimental mapping and route-finding system that takes advantage of mobile RFID (M-RFID) technologies to assist trail blazers and spelunkers to determine and later re-find safe routes. By affixing BAP (battery-assisted passive) RFID “blazes” to a convenient surface along the route, then “registering” the blaze with a hand held reader that will note the position of the RFID tag—including relative elevation—a simplistic map can be generated. Triangulating the reader’s position between two registered blazes ensures that the user remains on the correct path. This system is designed for use in “void” spaces, where other position-finding technologies (especially GPS) are unavailable or unreliable.

This project takes its name from the trail of bread crumbs left behind by fairy tale characters Hansel and Gretel to find their way home when they became lost in the woods, because the user leaves a “trail” of RFID blazes to mark his or her path.