SUPPORT FOR RELIABLE END TO END MESSAGING OF TAGS IN AN RFID INFRASTRUCTURE

• US 20080001709A1
• Filed: 07/28/2006
• Published: 01/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sundaram, Jayaraman Kalyana, Agarwal, Abhishek, Sriram, Balasubramanian, Ahmed, Mohamed Fakrudeen Ali, Goteti, Janaki Ram, Venkatesh, Ramachandran, Kumar, Anush, Sonnathi, Kalyan Chakravarthy
• Granted Patent: US 7,956,724 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/10.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10118 the sensing being preceded by at least one preliminary step
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information

Abstract

The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or a method that facilitates ensuring reliable data within a radio frequency identification (RFID) infrastructure. A radio frequency identification (RFID) network can include at least one device that receives data from a tag. A distribute component can initiate a reliable transaction with the received data to ensure at least one subscribing RFID process utilizes such data.

Claims

1. A system that facilitates ensuring reliable data within a radio frequency identification (RFID) infrastructure, comprising:

a radio frequency identification (RFID) network that includes at least one device that receives data from a tag; and

a distribute component that initiates and executes to completion a reliable transaction with the received data to ensure at least one subscribing RFID process utilizes such data.

2. The system of claim 1, the RFID process is a high-level object that forms together at least one entity to create a meaningful unit of execution that relates to at least one of the following:

an outbound process;

a manufacturing process;

a shipping process;

a receiving process;

a tracking process;

a data representation process;

a data manipulation process;

a security process; and

a process utilizing one of an RFID device service, a device collection, a tag read, an event, an event queue, a tag write, a device configuration, and a number count.

3. The system of claim 1, the device is one of the following:

an RFID reader;

an RFID writer;

an RFID printer;

a reader;

a writer;

an RFID transmitter;

an antenna;

a sensor;

a real-time device;

an RFID receiver;

a real-time sensor;

a device extensible to a web service; and

a real-time event generation system.

4. The system of claim 1, the received data is one of the following:

a read from the tag, a tag event, a tag read event, data received by the device, and data transmitted from the tag.

5. The system of claim 1, the reliable transaction is initiated upon transmission of the data from the tag.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising an event handler associated with the RFID process that utilizes the data.

7. The system of claim 6, the event handler is managed code running in the context of the RFID process that processes the data.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising a sink associated with the RFID process that utilizes the data.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising a rollback component that provides a rollback related to at least one RFID process upon an interruption.

10. The system of claim 9, the interruption is at least one of a power outage, a reboot, an error, a corruption, a crash, a manual restart, a bug, and a regression bug.

11. The system of claim 9, the rollback is at least one of a manual rollback, an automatic rollback, and a combination of a manual rollback and an automatic rollback.

12. The system of claim 1, further comprising a persistent queue that stores the data and from which at least on RFID process can pick up data.

13. The system of claim 12, the data is released from the persistent queue upon confirming the completion of a subscribing RFID process picking up the data.

14. The system of claim 1, the RFID network comprises a collection of devices that form a sub-system which includes:

an RFID reader that receives an RFID signal; and

an RFID tag that transmits to at least one device.

15. The system of claim 1, further comprising a presentation component that provides at least one user interface to facilitate interaction between a user and the distribute component.

16. The system of claim 1, the distribute component provides atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability for a lifetime of the data in relation to a subscribing RFID process.

17. A computer-implemented method that facilitates guaranteeing reliability of a tag read utilized in an RFID process, comprising:

initiating a transaction upon transmission of data from a tag, the transaction is between the data and a subscribing RFID process; and

utilizing the data with the subscribing RFID process.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

communicating the data to a server;

holding the data in a queue;

allowing the subscribing RFID process to pick up the data; and

releasing the data after the subscribing process has picked up the data.

19. The method of claim 17, further comprising utilizing a rollback technique in association with the subscribing RFID process.

20. A computer-implemented system that facilitates guaranteeing reliability of a tag read utilized in a radio frequency identification (RFID) process, comprising:

means for receiving data from a tag associated with an RFID network including at least one device; and

means for initiating a reliable transaction with the received data and an RFID process.