RFID tag singulation
First Claim
1. A method for singulating a wireless tag, comprising the steps of:
- transmitting a signal at a first power level to create a read volume;
attempting to receive a response from a wireless tag; and
determining whether a response has been received, wherein, if a determination is made that no response has been received, transmitting a subsequent signal at an increased power level over the previous signal enlarging the read volume.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Disclosed are embodiments of methods, systems, and apparatus for singulating wireless tags. In one embodiment, a power ramping method is provided for tag singulation. This embodiment involves activating a control of an RFID reader for engaging power to begin reading RFID tags. The first reading is taken at a relatively low transmitting power level. If an RFID tag is not detected at the first power level, the power from the RFID reader is increased to a second higher power level. Increasing the transmitting power may be repeated until there is a final read volume where a single RFID tag, or a select number of such tags, is detected. Certain embodiments may provide for ramping the power down as well as up, so that if multiple tags are detected and only the closest tag is desired to be detected, tags can be excluded systematically from the read volume until only a single tag remains.
89 Citations
37 Claims
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1. A method for singulating a wireless tag, comprising the steps of:
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transmitting a signal at a first power level to create a read volume;
attempting to receive a response from a wireless tag; and
determining whether a response has been received, wherein, if a determination is made that no response has been received, transmitting a subsequent signal at an increased power level over the previous signal enlarging the read volume. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A method for singulating a wireless tag, comprising the steps of:
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providing an RFID tag reader;
activating a control on the RFID tag reader, wherein activation of the control causes a signal to be transmitted from the RFID tag reader, wherein a power level of the signal is varied while the control is activated until only a single wireless tag is detected; and
deactivating the control. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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21. A data reader comprising:
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means for controlling the operation of the data reader;
an antenna; and
power ramping means for varying a power level transmitted from the antenna to singulate an RFID tag from a plurality of RFID tags. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36)
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37. A data reader comprising:
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a transmitter including an antenna, the transmitter capable of transmitting from the antenna an RF signal at multiple power levels; and
a processor connected to the transmitter, the processor configured to cause the transmitter to vary the power of the RF signal transmitted from the antenna to singulate an RFID tag from a plurality of RFID tags.
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Specification