WIRELESS TEMPERATURE SENSOR NETWORK
First Claim
1. A wireless sensor network comprising:
- a plurality of passive wireless transponder units, each transponder unit including wireless communication circuitry, said transponder units being positioned at dispersed locations;
each transponder unit including address decoder circuitry storing a unique identity code and operative to recover an address code from a received wireless query signal and to compare a recovered address code with said unique identity code;
each transponder unit including parameter sensor circuitry adapted tomeasure a particular parameter and to cause said communication circuitry to wirelessly transmit a reply signal including parameter data corresponding to a measured parameter value upon reception of said query signal including an address code matching said unique identity code; and
a wireless base station positioned in spaced relation to said transponder units, periodically transmitting said query signal and cyclically addressing each of said transponder units with a corresponding address code, receiving said reply signal from each of said transponder units, and extracting said parameter data from each reply signal for storage in a data file.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A wireless temperature sensor network includes a base station unit which transmits query signals cyclically addressing a plurality of temperature sensor transponder units. The transponder units are passive and derive operating power from the query signal to encode measured temperature data into a reply signal which is received by the base station. In a dual carrier embodiment, the query signal and reply signals are transmitted on separate frequencies. In a backscattering embodiment, the antennas of the transponder units can be switched between an absorption mode in which the query signal is received and a reflection mode in which the query signal is reflected back to the base station. The transponder antennas are switched in such a manner as to encode temperature data in the reflected signal to form a reply signal. The network embodiments are particularly applicable to space based platforms.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. A wireless sensor network comprising:
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a plurality of passive wireless transponder units, each transponder unit including wireless communication circuitry, said transponder units being positioned at dispersed locations; each transponder unit including address decoder circuitry storing a unique identity code and operative to recover an address code from a received wireless query signal and to compare a recovered address code with said unique identity code; each transponder unit including parameter sensor circuitry adapted to measure a particular parameter and to cause said communication circuitry to wirelessly transmit a reply signal including parameter data corresponding to a measured parameter value upon reception of said query signal including an address code matching said unique identity code; and a wireless base station positioned in spaced relation to said transponder units, periodically transmitting said query signal and cyclically addressing each of said transponder units with a corresponding address code, receiving said reply signal from each of said transponder units, and extracting said parameter data from each reply signal for storage in a data file. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A wireless sensor network comprising:
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a plurality of passive wireless transponder units positioned at dispersed locations; each transponder unit including wireless receiver circuitry operative to receive a wireless query signal; each transponder unit including power circuitry operative to extract operating power from said query signal and to supply said power to circuitry within said transponder unit; each transponder unit including address decoder circuitry storing a unique identity code and operative to recover an address code from said query signal and to compare a recovered address code with said unique identity code and upon said recovered address code matching said unique identity code generating an enable signal; each transponder unit including parameter sensor circuitry communicating with said address decoder circuitry and operative to measure a particular parameter and to convert a measured parameter value to digital parameter data upon receiving said enable signal; each transponder unit including modulator circuitry communicating with said parameter sensor circuitry and employing said digital parameter data to modulate a wireless reply signal; and a wireless base station positioned in spaced relation to said transponder units and periodically transmitting said query signal and cyclically addressing each of said transponder units with a corresponding address code, receiving said reply signal from each of said transponder units, and extracting said digital parameter data from each reply signal for storage in a data file. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A wireless sensor temperature network for a space vehicle comprising:
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a plurality of passive wireless transponder units positioned at dispersed locations within said space vehicle; each transponder unit including wireless receiver circuitry operative to receive a wireless query signal; each transponder unit including power circuitry operative to extract operating power from said query signal and to supply said power to circuitry within said transponder unit; each transponder unit including address decoder circuitry storing a unique identity code and operative to recover an address code from said query signal and to compare a recovered address code with said unique identity code and upon said recovered address code matching said unique identity code generating an enable signal; each transponder unit including temperature sensor circuitry communicating with said address decoder circuitry and operative to measure an ambient temperature and to convert a measured temperature value to digital temperature data upon receiving said enable signal; each transponder unit including modulator circuitry communicating with said temperature sensor circuitry and employing said digital temperature data to modulate a wireless reply signal; and a wireless base station positioned in spaced relation to said transponder units and periodically transmitting said query signal and cyclically addressing each of said transponder units with a corresponding address code, receiving said reply signal from each of said transponder units, and extracting said digital temperature data from each reply signal for storage in a data file. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20)
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Specification