RFID tag data acquisition system

• US 20060022801A1
• Filed: 07/29/2005
• Published: 02/02/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 07/30/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Quake Global, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Reva Systems Corp. (Quake Global, Inc.)
• Inventors: Fischer, Jeffrey H., Husak, David J., Stephenson, Robert A., Grady, Michael, Krishna, Pattabhiraman, Cabot, Chilton L., Barvick, Scott
• Granted Patent: US 7,667,572 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/10.500
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/02525 Gathering the radio frequency fingerprints
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/06 Position of source determined by co-ordinating a plurality of position lines defined by path-difference measurements G01S5/12 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 17/0029 the arrangement being specially adapted for wireless interrogation of grouped or bundled articles tagged with wireless record carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/0008 General problems related to the reading of electronic memory record carriers, independent of its reading method, e.g. power transfer
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10356 using a plurality of antennas, e.g. configurations including means to resolve interference between the plurality of antennas

Abstract

An architecture of an RFID system that facilitates the accessing of RFID tag data within an RFID environment. The architecture includes a plurality of RFID readers, each reader being operative to transmit a first RF signal for scanning at least one RFID tag disposed within an RF coverage region associated with the reader, and to receive at least one second RF signal including tag data in response to the scanning of the tag. The architecture further includes at least one host computer operative to execute at least one client application, and at least one controller/processor communicably coupled to the plurality of readers and the at least one host computer. The controller/processor is operative to control operation of the plurality of readers, to process the tag data received by the plurality of readers, and to provide the processed tag data to the at least one host computer for use by the at least one client application executing thereon.

Claims

1. A radio frequency identification (RFID) system for obtaining tag data from RFID tags, the system comprising:

at least one RF receiver for receiving RFID tag data from at least one RFID tag; and

at least one controller communicably coupled to said at least one RF receiver, said controller including a database having at least one parameter defining at least one operational characteristic of said at least one receiver, said at least one parameter being associated with the respective RF receiver, said controller being operative to forward commands to said at least one receiver containing the respective at least one parameter to dynamically control the operation of said at least one RF receiver within said system.