RFID device groups

• US 9,058,528 B2
• Filed: 04/30/2013
• Issued: 06/16/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/04/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Agarwal, Abhishek, Kumar, Anush, Sriram, Balasubramanian, Jain, Bhuvanesh, Sundaram, Jayaram Kalyana, Gopalan, Krishnan, Venkatesh, Ramachandran
• Primary Examiner(s): Ibrahim, Mohamed
• Application Number:
  US13/874,169
• Publication Number:
  US 20130307673A1
• Time in Patent Office: 777 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/0008 General problems related to the reading of electronic memory record carriers, independent of its reading method, e.g. power transfer
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10366 the interrogation device being adapted for miscellaneous applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/08 User group management

Abstract

The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or a method that facilitates configuring at least one radio frequency identification (RFID) device. An RFID network can include at least one device associated with a device group, wherein the device group corresponds to a characteristic. An organizational manager can uniformly configure the at least one device based at least in part upon membership of the device group.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

an RFID network comprising a plurality of RFID devices;

an organizational manager configured to uniformly configure a first set of devices included in a first device group according to a first process, and uniformly configure a second set of devices included in a second device group according to a second process different than the first process; and

a bind component configured to bind the first process to an RFID device if the RFID device is a member of the first device group, and to bind the second process to the RFID device if the RFID device is a member of the second device group.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the bind component is further configured to maintain a list of currently running processes that either have a hard link or a soft link to the plurality of RFID devices.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein a process is configured to utilize a rule-based system in association with an application related to the RFID network such that at least one of a filter and an alert corresponds to a rule.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the rule includes at least one of the following properties:

the rule is included within a rule set that adheres to an event, a condition, and an action;

or the rule is represented utilizing an extensible markup language (XML).

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the condition has at least one of a set of predicates and a logical connective to form a logical expression that evaluates to one of a true and a false.

6. The system of claim 2, wherein the bind component is further configured to link a device group and associated devices to a corresponding process.

7. The system of claim 2, wherein the process includes at least one of:

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 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.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising a transfer component configured to manipulate a membership of at least one of the plurality of RFID devices from the first device group to the second device group.

9. The system of claim 8, the transfer component configured to enable a change in device group membership in response to a user request.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the transfer component is further configured to enable the change in device group membership via a user interface utilizing a hierarchical tree.

11. The system of claim 1, further comprising a security component configured to provide a security privilege based at least in part upon membership to a particular device group.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the security component is further configured to utilize a plurality of distinct security levels respectively correlating to a plurality of device groups.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the security component is further configured to provide access based at least in part on credentials associated with a corresponding process.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the organization manager is further configured to examine a device group hierarchy.

15. The system of claim 1, further comprising at least one interface configured to utilize a hierarchical tree to represent device groups and at least one device within the RFID network.

16. The system of claim 1, the RFID network further including a collection of devices that form a sub-system which includes:

an RFID reader configured to receive an RFID signal; and

an RFID tag that configured to transmit to at least one device.

17. A computer-implemented method comprising:

configuring a first set of devices included in a first RFID device group according to a first process;

configuring a second set of devices included in a second RFID device group according to a second process different than the first process;

binding the first process to an RFID device if the RFID device is a member of the first device group; and

binding the second process to the RFID device if the RFID device is a member of the second device group.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 17, further comprising re-assigning the RFID device may to a different group, wherein a different process associated with the different group is bound to the RFID device upon the re-assigning.

19. A computer-readable storage device storing instructions, the instructions if executed by a computing device causing the computing device to perform operations comprising:

configuring a first set of devices included in a first RFID device group according to a first process;

configuring a second set of devices included in a second RFID device group according to a second process different than the first process;

binding the first process to an RFID device if the RFID device is a member of the first device group; and

binding the second process to the RFID device if the RFID device is a member of the second device group.

20. The computer-readable storage device of claim 19, the operations further comprising re-assigning the RFID device to a different group, wherein a different process associated with the different group is bound to the RFID device upon the re-assigning.