COMMODITY MANAGING ANTENNA AND CONTROL METHOD OF THE SAME

• US 20080036606A1
• Filed: 02/15/2007
• Published: 02/14/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/17/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Original Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Inventors: Kanai, Kazunaga, Tanabe, Kosuke, Kuramoto, Akio
• Application Number:
  US11/675,504
• Publication Number:
  US 20080036606A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/572.7
• 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 7/10316 using at least one antenna particularly designed for interrogating the wireless record carriers antennas in general H01Q1/22
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/08 Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management

Abstract

To suppress a loss in the operation due to electromagnetic coupling of a plurality of antenna elements which boot up reading/writing action of RFID tags that are attached to a large number of densely placed commodity media. A commodity managing antenna for booting up reading/writing action of RFID tags attached to commodity media that are densely stored on a shelf comprises: a plurality of loop-type antenna elements arranged in parallel at a constant interval on the shelf where the commodity media are densely stored; a first switch for selectively supplying electricity to one of the antenna elements; and a plurality of second switches inserted to each loop of the antenna elements which, when one of the antenna elements to which the electricity is supplied by the first switch is resonating, electrically disconnect the loops of remaining antenna elements so that those antenna elements become non-resonant.

Claims

1. A commodity managing antenna for booting up reading/writing action with respect to RFID tags attached to commodity media, comprising:

a plurality of loop-type antenna elements which resonate with a supply of electricity; and

switches, wherein

the loop-type antenna elements are provided at positions to partition a storage space where the commodity media are stored, and

the switches control the supply of electricity to the loop-type antenna elements.

2. The commodity managing antenna as claimed in claim 1, wherein each of the loop-type antenna elements comprises a switch for disconnecting its loop.

3. The commodity managing antenna as claimed in claim 1, wherein a resonance frequency that allows the antenna elements to resonate is a frequency that is adjusted to resonate under a state where the RFID tags attached to the commodity media to be stored are densely placed.

4. The commodity managing antenna as claimed in claim 1, wherein:

spacers are provided on inner sides of both ends of a shelf that is formed with a magnetic material; and

the spacers are formed with at least one of materials selected from a dielectric material, a nonmetal material, and a nonmagnetic material.

5. The commodity managing antenna as claimed in claim 2, wherein, as the switch, of the antenna element, a diode is inserted to the loop at a position between points where a coaxial central conductor and a coaxial outer conductor of a coaxial cable which supplies electricity are connected to the loop, and there is provided a bias tee that is constituted with a coil for applying a bias voltage to the coaxial central conductor of the coaxial cable and a capacitor for preventing the added bias voltage from being flown to an opposite side of the loop.

6. A commodity managing antenna control method for booting up reading/writing action with respect to RFID tags attached to commodity media, comprising the steps of:

selectively supplying electricity to one of a plurality of loop-type antenna elements that are arranged in parallel at a constant interval in a storage apace where the commodity media are placed; and

when electricity is supplied selectively to one of the plurality of antenna elements, loops of other antenna elements than the antenna element to which the electricity is selectively supplied are electrically disconnected so that the other antenna elements become non-resonant.