Radio frequency identification overlay network for fiber optic communication systems

• US 8,554,033 B2
• Filed: 11/26/2009
• Issued: 10/08/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 05/02/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Telescent Inc.
• Original Assignee: Telescent Inc.
• Inventors: Kewitsch, Anthony Stephen
• Primary Examiner(s): Lepisto, Ryan
• Assistant Examiner(s): TAVLYKAEV, ROBERT FUATOVICH
• Application Number:
  US12/626,680
• Publication Number:
  US 20100098425A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,412 Days
• Field of Search: 385/101, 398/113, 398115-117, 340/572.7, 340/854.7, 340/568.1, 340/686.2
• US Class Current: 385/101
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 6/3817 containing optical and electrical conductors cables including electrical and optical conductors H01B11/22; G02B6/3816 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 6/3895 identification of connection, e.g. right plug to the right socket or full engagement of the mating parts keying element on the plug or adapter G02B6/3831; keying element on the ferrule G02B6/3851; keying element for electrical connection H01R13/64
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 6/562 locatable, e.g. using magnetic means
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10178 including auxiliary means for focusing, repeating or boosting the electromagnetic interrogation field comparable booster antennas integrated on the record carrier itself G06K19/07794

Abstract

In this invention, a radio frequency identification overlay network that automates the discovery and configuration management of all physical fiber optic connections within a distributed communications network is disclosed. Miniaturized, low crosstalk RFID tags at a first fiber optic receptacle location and miniature, distributed, multiplexed reader antenna at a distant, second fiber optic receptacle location are joined by a fiber optic link which transmits both optical data and RF electronic signals. This electronic-fiber optic interface is comprised of two separated, miniaturized resonant antenna in communication with another through a resonant RF transmission line integral to the fiber optic cable. This RFID overlay network is comprised of multiplexed RFID readers, RF resonant fiber optic cables, and miniaturized RFID tags attached to the connector receptacles of network elements. The RFID overlay network interrogates tags automatically and remotely through the RF transmissive and optically transmissive fiber optic patch cords, eliminating the need for manual readout by technicians.

Claims

1. A system providing a combination of an electronic radio frequency identification (RFID) overlay system and a parallel fiber optic interconnection system to provide enhanced and automated optical network management, the combination comprising:

a network management server for data processing and control;

a multiplicity of fiber optic cables each having a first end and a second end, each cable including one or more optical fibers and also a conductor pair between the ends, each end of the conductor pair including an inductor coil with two terminals, the terminals being attached at first and second ends to the respective conductor pair, each conductor pair forming a flexible transmission line co-extensive with a different one of the fiber optic cables, each transmission line including capacitive elements selected to produce an electronic resonance for a selected RF signal;

a first distributed array of fiber optic cable interconnections, each including first connector receptacles coupled to the conductor pair therein at the first end thereof;

a multiplicity of miniature reader antennas, each positioned adjacent and coupled to a different interconnection at the first connector receptacles and responsive to a particular RF signal below about 150 KHz;

an electronic multiplexer coupled to the reader antennas and under network management server control to transmit an outgoing signal via a selected one of the conductor pairs and including means to transfer a return signal from any selected one of the conductor pairs to a common return line;

at least one electronic RFID reader, in communication with each of the multiplicity of the conductor pairs through the common return line of the electronic multiplexer;

a multiplicity of remote network elements each coupled separately to the second end of one of the fiber optic interconnections, and each including one of a multiplicity of second connector receptacles inductively coupled to the inductor end of the conductor pair therein at the second end thereof, and

a multiplicity of RFID transceiver elements, each element being coupled to a different individual second connector receptacle in the remote network element at the second end, such that when the first end of a fiber optic cable is attached to one of the first connector receptacles, and the second end of the fiber optic cable is attached to one of the second connector receptacles, the conductor pairs along each fiber optic cable can transmit an RFID transceiver identification signal from the second end to the first end, the signal being inductively coupled from the first end to the reader antenna and from the second end to the RFID reader element, the RFID reader element being responsive to the identification signal received at the reader antenna and coupling the identification signal back to the network management server.

2. A system in accordance with claim 1 above, wherein the connector receptacles accept one more connector types including LC, SC, MU, MT, FC, and ST fiber optic connectors.

3. A system in accordance with claim 1 above, wherein the length of the fiber optic cable is in the range of 3 m to 10 km and each conductor pair is affixed about its respective fiber optic cable in a spiral fashion with a distance between adjacent turns of greater than 10 mm, the conductors having a diameter of 0.075 to 0.250 mm.

4. A system in accordance with claim 1 above, wherein the RFID transceiver identification signal has a carrier frequency of 100 to 150 kHz and a data frequency of about 2 kHz.

5. A system in accordance with claim 1 above, wherein the reader antenna, RFID transceiver element, and inductor coil each have a volume of less than 75mm, and the system further includes an unshielded ferrite core inductor with an inductance of 0.5 to 2 mH.

6. A system in accordance with claim 1 above, wherein the fiber optic cable is of the class including simplex, duplex, and ribbon fiber cables with an outer jacket diameter of 1.5 mm to 6 mm and includes one or more single mode or multimode optical fibers internal to the jacket.

7. A system in accordance with claim 1 above, wherein the inductive couplings of the signal are configured such that the reader antenna and the inductor coil at first cable end are separated by less than 5 mm, and the RFID transceiver and the inductor coil at second cable end are separated by less than 5 mm.

8. A system in accordance with claim 1 above, wherein the inductive couples are configured such that any particular RFID transceiver is in communication with only one particular reader antenna when a single fiber optic cable is attached therebetween.

9. A system including multiplicity of distributed RF antennas and a multiplicity of passive RFID transceivers, individually paired therewith, each antenna and transceiver pair defining the endpoints of a different one of a multiplicity of links, each link comprised of a fiber optic cable with a first end and a second end, said cables each including one or more internal fiber optic strands and a coextensive pair of conductors joining the ends, the conductor pairs further including interior capacitors and terminal inductors coupled thereto at each end, the inductor and capacitor circuit elements exhibiting electrical resonance with a quality factor greater than 10 to provide enhanced signal transmission between the antenna and transceiver.

10. A system in accordance with claim 9, wherein the elements in the multiple sets of distributed RF antenna, RFID transceiver, and inductor are each less in size than about 5 mm on a side and about 64 mm³ in volume and the individual sets are each characterized by an inductance of 0.5 to 2 mH.

11. A method of automatically monitoring the connectivity of fiber optic links with fiber optic terminals, the links being configured to form part of a distributed optical communications system connecting network elements, including a plurality of patch-panel ports, using a system of a multiplicity of distributed RFID readers, arrayed and multiplexed RFID antennas, different RF transmissive lines associated with the fiber optic cables, RFID tag elements associated with the fiber optic terminals, and at least one processor unit under remote software control, comprising the steps of:

deploying a multiplicity of the RFID readers with multiplexed reader coils at the patch-panel ports and with RFID tag elements corresponding to fiber optic ports of network elements;

separately establishing both optical and RF connectivity between at least a fraction of the patch-panel ports with the multiplexed reader coils to distant RFID tags at the network elements employing the RF transmissive lines associated with the different fiber optic cables;

transmitting the RFID digital identifier at a signal in the kilohertz range along the RF transmissive lines associated with a chosen fiber optic cable having a connection to a particular distant network element port associated with the tag element;

sensing an RFID digital identifier passively generated at the chosen network element by the RFID tag element thereat and returned to the RFID antenna;

demultiplexing the passively generated identifiers that are returned for coupling to the processor; and

employing software resident in the at least one processor unit to determine the link connectivity for a distributed multiplicity of links.

12. A method in accordance with claim 11, further including the step of employing RF transmissive links which exhibit a resonance LC characteristic with a quality factor exceeding 10 and at a frequency in the range of 100kHz to 150 kHz.

13. A method in accordance with claim 11, further including the step of employing RF transmissive links which exhibit a series resonance LC characteristic, and wherein the resonance frequencies of the reader, tag and RF transmission line are perturbed by strong coupling therebetween.

14. A method in accordance with claim 11, further including the step of reconfiguring the connections between the links in an automated fashion based on the link connectivity status.

15. For a fiber optic communication network having a plurality of circuits in which a network management server operates a cross-connect circuit to communicate selectively from a cross connect terminal with different ones of a plurality of network elements via individual circuits, a radio frequency identification (RFID) overlay system for mapping the physical interconnections in the network to determine the status of the network elements therein, comprising:

a plurality of individual pairs of RF transmission lines, each of said pairs extending along a different fiber optic line from a first end at the cross-connect terminal to a different network element at a second end thereof, the transmission lines each comprising distributed capacitance along their length and first and second terminal inductor elements individually at the first and second ends thereof to transfer signals applied thereto between the transmission line ends at a selected frequency;

a cross connect terminal circuit at the network management system comprising a multiplexer and a plurality of third reader inductor elements, coupled to the multiplexer, each reader inductor being in close coupling relation to the first inductor element of a different one of the transmission line pairs, the multiplexer being responsive to command signals from the management server to selectively couple a tag signal to a selected one of the reader inductors such that a responsive transmission along the coupled transmission line pair transfers the tag signal to the inductor element at the second end thereof;

a plurality of network responder elements distributed individually throughout the plurality of network elements and each including an RFID tag sensor comprising a fourth inductor in close signal coupling operative relationship to the adjacent one of the second inductors, the RFID tag sensor also including an RFID transceiver emitting an element identified signal in response to an RFID signal received at the associated fourth inductor, the transceiver being coupled to return the element identifier signal to the cross connect terminal via the sequence of inductors and the associated transmission line; and

the cross connect terminal circuit also comprises an RFID reader circuit coupled to receive acknowledgement signals returned from any of the plurality of responder elements, whereby the current status of the network can be mapped.

16. A system as set forth in claim 15 above, wherein the cross connect terminal circuit comprises the antenna distributor bus coupling each of the plurality of responder elements to a single RFID reader, and wherein the network responder elements are each of less than about 64 mm³ in volume.

17. A system as set forth in claim 16 above, wherein the tag signal is in the frequency range of about 100 KHz to about 150 Mz and wherein the acknowledgement signal is at about 2 KHz.

18. A system as set forth in claim 17 above, wherein the network responder elements each include non-volatile memory containing a unique electronic identifier, and wherein the transmission lines have RC elements providing a resonance response with a quality factor greater than 10.