Support for reliable end to end messaging of tags in an RFID infrastructure

• US 7,956,724 B2
• Filed: 07/28/2006
• Issued: 06/07/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sundaram, Jayaraman Kalyana, Agarwal, Abhishek, Venkatesh, Ramachandran, Sonnathi, Kalyan Chakravarthy, Sriram, Balasubramanian, Ahmed, Mohamed Fakrudeen Ali, Goteti, Janaki Ram, Kumar, Anush
• Primary Examiner(s): Zimmerman; Brian A
• Assistant Examiner(s): Khan; Omer S
• Application Number:
  US11/460,772
• Publication Number:
  US 20080001709A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,775 Days
• Field of Search: 340/10.1, 340/572.1
• US Class Current: 340/10.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10118 the sensing being preceded by at least one preliminary step
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information

Abstract

The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or a method that facilitates ensuring reliable data within a radio frequency identification (RFID) infrastructure. A radio frequency identification (RFID) network can include at least one device that receives data from a tag. A distribute component can initiate a reliable transaction with the received data to ensure at least one subscribing RFID process utilizes such data.

Claims

1. A system for ensuring reliable data within a radio frequency identification (RFID) infrastructure, comprising:

a radio frequency identification (RFID) network that includes at least one device for receiving data from a tag;

a persistent queue configured to store the data;

a distribute component configured to initiate and execute to completion a reliable transaction with the received data to ensure at least one subscribing RFID process utilizes such data, at least in part by performing operations to

create a transaction associated with the data,

relate the transaction to a plurality of RFID processes supported by a host, each of the plurality of RFID processes subscribing to at least a portion of the data and, and

maintain the data in the persistent queue until each of the plurality of RFID processes has utilized a respective portion of the data; and

a rollback component configured to provide at least one checkpoint for resumption of an interrupted RFID process;

wherein at least one of the plurality RFID processes comprises a write process configured to write to a tag process, and to check if the write succeeded by reading and passing data to the host.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the plurality of RFID processes relates to at least one of the following:

an outbound process;

a manufacturing process;

a shipping process;

a receiving process;

a tracking process;

a data representation process;

a data manipulation process;

a security process;

or a process utilizing at least one of an RFID device service, a device collection, a tag read, an event, an event queue, a tag write, a device configuration, or a number count.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one device includes at least one of the following:

an RFID reader;

an RFID writer;

an RFID printer;

a reader;

a writer;

an RFID transmitter;

an antenna;

a sensor;

a real-time device;

an RFID receiver;

a real-time sensor;

a device extensible to a web service;

or a real-time event generation system.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the received data includes at least one of the following:

a read from the tag, a tag event, a tag read event, data received by the device, or data transmitted from the tag.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the transaction is to be initiated upon transmission of the data from the tag.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising an event handler associated with at least one of the plurality of RFID processes.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the event handler includes managed code for executing in a context of the at least one of the plurality of RFID processes.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising a sink associated with at least one of the plurality of RFID processes.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein an interruption associated with the interrupted RFID process includes at least one of a power outage, a reboot, an error, a corruption, a crash, a manual restart, a bug, or a regression bug.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein a rollback associated with the rollback component includes at least one of a manual rollback or an automatic rollback.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the distribute component is further configured to include in the transaction the operations of transporting the data to an RFID server, depositing the data in the persistent queue for each subscribing RFID process, and passing the data through a plurality of event handlers.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the data is to be released from the persistent queue if a completion of a subscribing RFID process picking up the data is confirmed.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the RFID network comprises at least one of:

an RFID reader for receiving an RFID signal;

or an RFID tag for transmitting to at least one device.

14. The system of claim 1, further comprising a presentation component for facilitating interaction with the distribute component.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the distribute component is configured to provide atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability for a lifetime of the data in relation to a subscribing RFID process.