Systems and methods that integrate radio frequency identification (RFID) technology with agent-based control systems

• US 7,551,081 B2
• Filed: 11/10/2004
• Issued: 06/23/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/10/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Inventors: Macurek, Filip, Hall, Kenwood H., Marik, Vladimir, Vrba, Pavel, Tichy, Pavel
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Tai T
• Application Number:
  US10/985,173
• Publication Number:
  US 20060097873A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,686 Days
• Field of Search: 3405721-5729, 340/573.1, 340/573.4, 340/5.8, 340/10.52
• US Class Current: 340/572.1
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/4183 characterised by data acquisition, e.g. workpiece identification
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/25196 Radio link, transponder
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/33055 Holon, agent executes task and cooperates with other, distributed control
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/02 Total factory control, e.g. smart factories, flexible manufacturing systems [FMS] or integrated manufacturing systems [IMS]

Abstract

The subject invention relates to systems and methods that distribute electronic data, such as Electronic Product Code (EPC) data, obtained from RFID tags by Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) readers and/or servers to agents within an agent-based control system. The systems and methods employ a component that collects, filters, processes, and stores electronic product data. The component collects electronic product data through corresponding reader and/or server interfaces. This data can be filtered to accept particular electronic product data, processed to a format suitable to the agents, and stored. Such storage can include delineating the electronic product data across rows of a table by electronic product code and across columns of the table by various types of data. Upon receiving a subscription and/or request from an agent for electronic product data, the component can obtain and convey the information to the agent.

Claims

1. A system that facilitates electronic data distribution to one or more agents within an agent-based control system, comprising:

a reader interface that receives electronic data from one or more Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) readers;

a filter component that filters the electronic data received by the reader interface to recognize data associated with electronic data of interest and/or to mitigate receiving duplicate electronic data;

a processing component that formats the electronic data and stores it in a table, the electronic data is processed to a format suitable to the agents; and

a component that provides at least a subset of the stored electronic data to agents subscribed to receive the subset of the stored electronic data via an inter-agent communication mechanism, the agents are responsible for local decision making and cooperate to provide desirable global behavior of the agent-based control system.

2. The system of claim 1, the electronic data comprises at least one of an Electronic Product Code (EPC), a logical reader identifier, a timestamp, a flag indicating the electronic data is within an antenna'"'"'s range, a product type, a date of manufacture, a lot number, an associated case, an associated pallet, and an associated container level.

3. The system of claim 1, the reader interface employs RFID Driver Plug-ins to receive the electronic data from RFID readers associated with different vendors.

4. The system of claim 3, the RFID Reader Driver Plug-ins utilize a wire or wireless connection to exchange the electronic data.

5. The system of claim 3, the RFID Reader Driver Plug-ins employ vendor communication protocols to communicate with a vendor'"'"'s RFID reader.

6. The system of claim 1, the electronic data is delineated in the table based on an EPC code and/or a type.

7. The system of claim 1, the electronic data is stored in a database or memory.

8. The system of claim 1, the electronic data is unprocessed data.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising an intelligent component that employs at least one of statistics, probabilities, inferences, and classifiers to facilitate one or more of collecting, filtering, formatting, storing and distributing the electronic data.

10. The system of claim 1, the subset of the stored electronic data is conveyed to the agents as records of data.

11. The system of claim 1, the inter-agent communication interface is one of a subscription mechanism, wherein at least one of the agents subscribes and is informed each time an RFID tag enters a reader'"'"'s range, and a query mechanism, wherein at least one of the agents requests and receives historical data.

12. A system that facilitates electronic product data distribution to an agent-based control system, comprising:

means for obtaining electronic product data from one or more RFID readers;

means for filtering the electronic product data received by the RFID readers to recognize data associated with electronic product data of interest and/or to mitigate receiving duplicate electronic product data;

means for storing the electronic product data in a structured format; and

means for providing the stored electronic product data to agents in the agent-based control system via an inter-agent communication mechanism, the agents are responsible for local decision making and cooperate to provide desirable global behavior of the agent-based control system.