Tracking of Sample Boxes Using Energy Harvesting

• US 20140230472A1
• Filed: 02/20/2014
• Published: 08/21/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/20/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: BioTillion, LLC
• Original Assignee: BioTillion, LLC
• Inventors: Coradetti, Thomas, Davidowitz, Hananel, Altman, Theodore
• Granted Patent: US 10,401,082 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 62/125
• CPC Class Codes: A01N 1/00 Preservation of bodies of humans or animals, or parts thereof
• CPC Class Codes: A01N 1/0242 Apparatuses, i.e. devices used in the process of preservation of living parts, such as pumps, refrigeration devices or any other devices featuring moving parts and/or temperature controlling components
• CPC Class Codes: A01N 1/0252 Temperature controlling refrigerating apparatus, i.e. devices used to actively control the temperature of a designated internal volume, e.g. refrigerators, freeze-drying apparatus or liquid nitrogen baths
• CPC Class Codes: A01N 1/0268 Carriers for immersion in cryogenic fluid, both for slow-freezing and vitrification, e.g. open or closed "straws" for embryos, oocytes or semen
• CPC Class Codes: F25D 11/04 specially adapted for storing deep-frozen articles F25D11/02 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: F25D 13/02 with several cooling compartments, e.g. refrigerated locker systems
• CPC Class Codes: F25D 25/02 by shelves
• CPC Class Codes: F25D 2500/06 Stock management
• CPC Class Codes: F25D 2700/08 Sensors using Radio Frequency Identification [RFID]
• CPC Class Codes: F25D 29/00 Arrangement or mounting of control or safety devices
• CPC Class Codes: F25D 29/008 Alarm devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders

Abstract

In one embodiment, a freezer system has one or more shelves, each shelf has shelf electronics and can receive one or more racks, each rack has rack electronics and one or more cells for receiving one or more boxes of samples, each box has one or more RFID tags. Freezer electronics communicate with the outside world and with each set of shelf electronics. Each set of rack electronics communicates wirelessly with the corresponding set of shelf electronics and with the corresponding box RFID tags. Power for the rack electronics is derived from wireless signals from the shelf electronics. The freezer system can detect the presence of racks on shelves and boxes on racks to track the location and the orientation of each received box.

Claims

1. A freezer as shown in FIG. 1.