Dynamic display of RFID and sensor data

• US 20060145831A1
• Filed: 12/22/2004
• Published: 07/06/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Bornhoevd, Christof, Mo, Brian S., Gurram, Rama
• Granted Patent: US 7,250,862 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/521
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/26 Visual data mining; Browsing structured data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/203 Inventory monitoring

Abstract

Systems, methods and computer program products, implementing techniques for automatic data acquisition and the real-time display of automatically acquired data. A system implementing the techniques includes one or more automatic data acquisition devices that emit data; and a data integration system that receives data from the automatic data acquisition devices and processes the data. The data integration system includes a display system for displaying the data to a user. The display system is operable to generate a graphical display and to update the graphical display automatically and only when new data from the automatic data acquisition devices is available. The display system is operable to update only affected parts of the graphical display but not necessarily the entire display.

Claims

1. A computer program product, tangibly embodied in an information carrier, the computer program product being operable to cause data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

receiving data emitted by a plurality of automatic data acquisition devices, the automatic data acquisition devices including both periodic devices that emit periodic data and aperiodic devices that emit aperiodic data, periodic data being data that is emitted continuously at regular intervals, aperiodic data being data that is emitted at irregular intervals;

displaying the data for viewing by a user; and

automatically updating the displayed data only when new data is received.

2. The product of claim 1, wherein:

the data is received by a server; and

displaying the data for viewing by a user includes;

sending the data to a client; and

displaying the data on the client for viewing by a user.

3. The product of claim 2, wherein:

the server is a web server; and

the client is a web browser.

4. The product of claim 1, wherein:

the periodic devices include sensor devices; and

the aperiodic devices include RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag readers.

5. A computer program product, tangibly embodied in an information carrier, the computer program product being operable to cause data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

subscribing to a publication service that publishes data emitted by automatic data acquisition devices, the publication service being provided by a web server, the automatic data acquisition devices include both periodic devices that emit periodic data and aperiodic devices that emit aperiodic data, periodic data being data that is emitted continuously at regular intervals, aperiodic data being data that is emitted at irregular intervals;

receiving a web page from the web server, the web page including the data;

displaying the web page for viewing by a user;

receiving from the web server one or more updates to the data;

identifying a portion of the web page that is affected by the updates; and

redrawing only the identified portion of the web page, the identified portion being less than the entire web page.

6. The product of claim 5, wherein the web page is displayed in a web browser without the installation of any additional programs or components to the web browser.

7. The product of claim 5, wherein:

the web page further includes a mechanism that is operable to establish a persistent connection with the web server; and

the web page including the data, and the one or more updates to the data, are received through the persistent connection.

8. The product of claim 5, wherein:

the periodic devices include sensor devices; and

the aperiodic devices include RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag readers.

9. A system comprising:

one or more automatic data acquisition devices that emit data; and

a data integration system that receives data from the automatic data acquisition devices and processes the data, the data integration system including a display system for displaying the data to a user in real time.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the data integration system is operable to send the data to display system and to separately send the data to one or more enterprise applications.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the display system is operable to generate a graphical display and to update the graphical display automatically.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the display system is operable to update the graphical display only when new data from the automatic data acquisition devices is available.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the display system is operable to update the graphical display without redrawing the entire graphical display.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein:

the display system includes a web server and a web browser; and

the graphical display is a web page.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the web page is displayed by the web browser without the installation of any additional programs or components.

16. The system of claim 9, wherein the automatic data acquisition devices include both periodic devices that emit periodic data and aperiodic devices that emit aperiodic data, periodic data being data that is emitted continuously at regular intervals, aperiodic data being data that is emitted at irregular intervals.

17. The system of claim 9, wherein:

the periodic devices include sensor devices; and

the aperiodic devices include RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag readers.

18. The system of claim 9, wherein the data integration system includes a rules engine that executes a set of rules, each rule specifying one or more conditions and one or more activities to be executed when the conditions are met.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the activities includes sending an event to the display system, the event containing data emitted by the automatic data acquisition devices.

20. The system of claim 9, wherein the display system is operable to generate multiple graphical displays and to update the multiple graphical displays simultaneously.