Positioning Guidance for Increasing Reliability of Near-Field Communications
First Claim
1. A method of operating an NFC-enabled device, comprising:
- a) detecting, by the NFC-enabled device, a respective current in each of a plurality of NFC antennas in an NFC antenna array, the respective currents induced by a common NFC reader field; and
b) determining, based at least in part on the magnitude of each of the respective currents, if changing the position of the NFC-enabled device would improve communicative interaction with the NFC reader field;
wherein the NFC antenna array is disposed on the NFC-enabled device.
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Accused Products
Abstract
To promote ease of use, as well as a reduction in bit error rates during extended data exchange between a coupled NFC tag/reader pair, signal strength is measured from a plurality of NFC tag antennas each positioned differently with respect to a common reader field, and differences in signal strength are used to determine an optimum positioning of the tag, or tag emulator, with respect to the reader. Alternative embodiments may include signal time of flight for determining orientation of the NFC antennas within the reader field. Information is generated by the tag, or tag emulator, and output by the tag, or tag emulator, such that a user may direct the positioning of the tag, or tag emulator, for improved communication with the reader.
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Citations
24 Claims
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1. A method of operating an NFC-enabled device, comprising:
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a) detecting, by the NFC-enabled device, a respective current in each of a plurality of NFC antennas in an NFC antenna array, the respective currents induced by a common NFC reader field; and b) determining, based at least in part on the magnitude of each of the respective currents, if changing the position of the NFC-enabled device would improve communicative interaction with the NFC reader field; wherein the NFC antenna array is disposed on the NFC-enabled device. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A method of operating an NFC tag emulator, comprising:
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coupling to an NFC reader field at each of a plurality of NFC antennas, each of the plurality of NFC antennas disposed on the tag emulator; determining, by the tag emulator, the relative coupling strength at each of the plurality of antennas based at least in part on the magnitude of a current induced in each of the plurality of antennas by the coupled NFC reader field; generating, by the tag emulator, position-correction information based at least in part on the relative coupling strength at each of the plurality of antennas; wherein each of the plurality of antennas has a known spaced apart relationship to the other antennas of the plurality of antennas. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. An NFC-enabled device, comprising:
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an NFC antenna array having at least three antennas; a plurality of field strength detector circuits, one field strength detector circuit coupled to each of the at the least three antennas, the field strength detector circuits operable to provide one or more signals indicative of the strength of the received signal at the antenna to which it is coupled; a computational resource coupled to each of the plurality of field strength detectors, the computational resource operable, based at least in part on the signals indicative of the strength of the received signal at each antenna of the NFC antenna array, to determine whether the NFC-enabled device should be repositioned for improved communicative interaction with a reader device; and a visual display device coupled to the computational resource; wherein the visual display, under control of the computational resource, provides a user-perceivable output indicating the distance and direction for repositioning the NFC-enabled device. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20)
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21. A method of aligning a pair of NFC-enabled devices to each other, at least one of the NFC-enabled devices having a plurality of antennas, comprising:
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transmitting from each of the plurality of antennas of a first one of the pair of NFC-enabled devices, a corresponding command; receiving a response to each of the commands; measuring the response delay time of each of the responses; recording each response delay time such that each response delay time is associated with the antenna from which the respective command was transmitted; and determining the distance of each of the antennas from the source of the response based on the response delay time associated with each antenna; wherein the response delay time is the amount of time between the command sent and the reception of a first response edge. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23)
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24. A method of aligning a pair of NFC-enabled devices to each other, at least one of the NFC-enabled devices having a plurality of antennas, comprising:
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transmitting a plurality of commands from each of the plurality of antennas of a first one of the pair of NFC-enabled devices; receiving a response to each of the commands; measuring the response delay time of each of the responses; recording each response delay time such that each response delay time is associated with the antenna from which the respective command was transmitted; averaging, for each of the plurality of antennas, the associated plurality of response delay times; and determining the distance of each of the antennas from the source of the response based on the average response delay time associated with each antenna; wherein the response delay time is the amount of time between the command sent and the reception of a first response edge.
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Specification