Sensor fusion for RFID accuracy

• US 20070052540A1
• Filed: 09/06/2005
• Published: 03/08/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/06/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Inventors: Hall, Kenwood, Pai, Ramdas
• Application Number:
  US11/220,130
• Publication Number:
  US 20070052540A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/572.100
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10108 interrogating only those RFIDs that fulfill a predetermined requirement, e.g. selecting all RFIDs having the same speed and moving in a cloud like fashion, e.g. on the same train; interrogating only RFIDs having a certain predetermined temperature, e.g. in the same fridge, another possibility being the active ignoring of a group of tags that fulfill a predetermined requirement, equivalent to the Boolean NOT operation
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/24 by interference with electromagnetic field distribution

Abstract

System(s) and method(s) to increase the accuracy and efficiency of an RFID system is provided. A system includes an RFID tag that receives a signal from an RFID reader and an RFID tag that receives a signal from an RFID reader. The system further includes at least one sensor that detects the environment of a product associated with the RFID tag and transmits a environment detection signal to the RFID reader; and an aggregation component that receives the environment detection signal and a corresponding data tag information from the RFID tag. If a environment detection signal is not received, the RFID reader ignores the data tag information.

Claims

1. A radio frequency identification (RFID) system, comprising:

an RFID tag that sends a data tag information to an RFID reader;

at least one sensor that detects a location of a product associated with the RFID tag and transmits a location signal to the RFID reader; and

an aggregation component that receives the location signal and the corresponding data tag information from the RFID tag.

2. The system of claim 1, the location of a product is sensed by at least one of weight and presence of the product.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising a tracking component that maintains the data tag information.

4. The system of claim 3, the tracking component ignores data tag information that is a duplicate of maintained data tag information.

5. The system of claim 1, the RFID reader only accepts the data tag information if an associated location detection signal is received.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the RFID reader is also a writer that writes data to the RFID tag.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the sensor includes a photo detection system.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the sensor includes a weight detector.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising an artificial intelligence component that employs a probabilistic and/or statistical-based analysis to prognose or infer an action to be automatically performed.

10. An RFID system, comprising:

an RFID reader that broadcasts a signal to an RFID tag of an item and communicates a response signal from the RFID tag to a controller; and

a sensor component that detects a presence of the item and sends to the controller a presence signal that corresponds to a location of the item.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the controller processes the response signal from the RFID tag if the presence signal is received from the sensor component.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the controller rejects the response signal from the RFID tag if the presence signal is not received from the sensor component.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the RFID reader further comprises a tracking component that records the response signal received from the RFID tag and discriminates the response signal from a second response signal received from a second RFID tag.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the controller tracks an RFID tag that has been read to distinguish between a current item and an item that includes the RFID tag that has been read.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the sensor component includes a plurality of item detection systems that output signals based upon the location of the item.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the output signals are processed in combination with the response signal to indicate status of an RFID read operation.

17. A method of validating an RFID read operation, comprising:

sensing a location of an object to generate location data;

receiving RFID tag data of the object;

comparing the location data and RFID tag data; and

processing the RFID tag data accordingly.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising accepting the RFID tag data if the location data indicates that the object should be read.

19. The method of claim 17, further comprising rejecting the RFID tag data if the location data indicates that the object should not be read.

20. The method of claim 17, further comprising automatically transmitting the RFID tag data and an RFID reader ID if the location data indicates that the object should be read.

21. The method of claim 17, further comprising storing the RFID tag data for further processing.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising determining if a subsequent received RFID tag data is same as the stored RFID tag data.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising accepting the subsequent received RFID tag data when the received RFID tag data is different from the stored RFID tag data.

24. The method of claim 22, further comprising rejecting the received RFID tag data when the received RFID tag data is same as the stored RFID tag data.

25. The method of claim 17, further comprising tracking RFID tag data associated with past read operations to differentiate a current object from a past object that is associated with the past read operations.

26. A system that facilitates an RFID data read operation, comprising:

means for detecting location of an object;

means for receiving a presence signal associated with the location of the object;

means for activating a read operation of an RFID tag of the object;

means for receiving RFID tag data during a read operation of the RFID tag; and

means for processing the RFID tag data and the presence signal to determine a status of the read operation.

27. The system of claim 26, further comprising means for tracking the RFID tag data to distinguish between a current object and an object that includes the RFID tag that has been read.

28. The system of claim 26, wherein the means for processing the RFID tag data is performed by a controller.

29. The system of claim 26, wherein the location of the object is sensed by at least one of weight and presence of the object.

30. The system of claim 26, further comprising an artificial intelligence component that employs a probabilistic and/or statistical-based analysis to prognose or infer an action to be automatically performed.