RFID tag and printer system
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A printer system, comprising:
- a roll of labels, wherein each label comprises a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag;
an RFID reader system comprising;
an RFID reader; and
an RFID antenna, wherein the RFID antenna comprises;
an RF field spreader;
an RF divergent conductor, with a divergent side contacting the RF field spreader and an opposite side forming an RF source node;
a first ground plane adjacent to the RF field spreader; and
a second ground plane adjacent to the RF divergent conductor; and
a print head, wherein the RFID antenna is between the roll of labels and the print head.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An RFID label with embedded tag is passed through an RFID antenna in a printer system, where the RFID antenna allows a roll of such labels to pass in close proximity to the antenna and still allow each individual RFID tag to be read and/or programmed. The RFID antenna has a rectangular RF field spreader in contact with a triangular divergent RF conductor with an RF source point at the point. Ground planes are located on either side of the antenna. In another embodiment, the printer system extracts or parses bar code commands from a data stream and passes the commands to both a printer and an RFID reader to print the image and program the tag with the bar code information.
-
Citations
34 Claims
-
1. A printer system, comprising:
-
a roll of labels, wherein each label comprises a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag;
an RFID reader system comprising;
an RFID reader; and
an RFID antenna, wherein the RFID antenna comprises;
an RF field spreader;
an RF divergent conductor, with a divergent side contacting the RF field spreader and an opposite side forming an RF source node;
a first ground plane adjacent to the RF field spreader; and
a second ground plane adjacent to the RF divergent conductor; and
a print head, wherein the RFID antenna is between the roll of labels and the print head. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
-
-
16. A printing system, comprising:
-
a host computer, wherein the host computer is capable of transmitting a data stream using a first programming language; and
a printer system, comprising;
an extractor coupled to receive the data stream, wherein the extractor extracts a first portion of the data stream and generates RFID commands from the first portion;
a parser coupled to the extractor, wherein the parser parses image portions from RFID portions of the first portion of the data stream;
an image formatter coupled to receive the image portions from the parser;
an RFID data formatter coupled to receive the RFID portions from the parser;
a print sub-system coupled to the image formatter for printing an image on a label; and
an RFID system coupled to the RFID data formatter for programming data on an RFID tag in the label. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
-
-
22. A method for printing labels from a roll, with each label having a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag, the method comprising:
-
passing a label over an RFID antenna;
interrogating the RFID tag in the label;
determining if the interrogating was successful;
attempting N−
1 additional interrogations until a successful interrogation is determined; and
printing the label once a successful interrogation is determined. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
-
-
30. A method of processing an label with an RFID tag, comprising:
-
receiving, from a host computer, a data stream in a programming language;
extracting a first portion from the data stream;
formatting at least part of the first portion into an RFID command;
programming bar code data into the RFID tag using the formatted portion; and
printing the label using commands from the first portion of the data stream. - View Dependent Claims (31, 32, 33, 34)
-
Specification