System and Method for Simultaneous Wireless Charging, Tracking And Monitoring Of Equipments

• US 20130135084A1
• Filed: 11/19/2012
• Published: 05/30/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/28/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: TATA Consultancy Services Limited (Tata Sons Pvt Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: TATA Consultancy Services Limited (Tata Sons Pvt Ltd.)
• Inventors: Chakravarty, Tapas, Purushothaman, Balamuralidhar
• Granted Patent: US 9,178,569 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/10.1
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 50/20 using microwaves or radio frequency waves
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 50/27 characterised by the type of receiving antennas, e.g. rectennas
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 7/00 Circuit arrangements for charging or depolarising batteries or for supplying loads from batteries
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 7/00034 Charger exchanging data with an electronic device, i.e. telephone, whose internal battery is under charge
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 5/77 for interrogation
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 5/79 for data transfer in combination with power transfer

Abstract

A system and method for simultaneous charging, tracking and monitoring one or more equipments, comprising actuating a coordinator using a management server for transmitting UHF radio waves; receiving the transmitted UHF radio waves by a receiver; converting the UHF radio waves into DC power by employing an energy harvesting IC for charging a battery pack of said equipment, and simultaneously activating an RFID tag for receiving one or more operational parameters related to said equipment by employing said one or more sensors and transmitting said received one or more operational parameters by using short range data communication protocol via said coordinator.

Claims

1. A system for simultaneous wireless charging, tracking and monitoring of at least one equipment, the system comprising:

a management server, at least one coordinator and at least one receiver wherein

said management server is communicatively coupled with said coordinator and actuates said coordinator to transmit UHF radio waves;

said coordinator is communicatively coupled with said receiver; and

said receiver is electrically and communicatively coupled with and enclosed inside said equipment, wherein said receiver adapted to receive the UHF radio waves transmitted by said coordinator.

2. The system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the management server is a hospital management server and said at least one equipment is sealed medical equipments.

3. The system as claimed in claim 1 wherein said coordinator comprises a transceiver for short range data communication and a UHF antenna.

4. The system as claimed in claim 1 wherein said coordinator is adapted to transmit UHF radio waves in ISM band.

5. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said receiver further comprises one single UHF receiver antenna, a power divider, a wireless charging subsystem and a monitoring and tracking subsystem, wherein said UHF receiver antenna is adapted to receive and transmit UHF radio signal, said power divider is adapted to divide the received UHF radio signal from UHF receiver antenna and transmit a first part of the UHF radio signal to the wireless charging subsystem and a second part of the UHF radio signal to the monitoring and tracking subsystem;

said wireless charging subsystem comprising a wireless charging circuit, a buffer, a controller circuit and a battery pack;

said monitoring and tracking subsystem comprising a programmable delay unit, an RFID tag and one or more sensors;

wherein

said wireless charging circuit is adapted to convert the received first part of the UHF radio signal to DC power and transmit the DC power to said buffer and controller circuit, wherein said buffer and controller circuit transmits the DC power for charging the battery pack and activates the RFID tag;

said programmable delay unit is adapted to provide a time delay to the second part of the received UHF radio signal and transmits the UHF radio signal to the activated RFID tag;

said RFID tag is communicatively coupled with said one or more sensors to receive one or more operational parameters related to said equipment by employing said one or more sensors and is adapted to transmit said received one or more operational parameters via said UHF receiver antenna.

6. The system as claimed in claim 5 wherein said UHF receiver antenna is a flexible UHF antenna.

7. The system as claimed in claim 5 wherein said wireless charging circuit comprises a RF energy harvesting IC.

8. The system as claimed in claim 5 wherein said one or more sensors are selected from the group consisting of temperature sensor, humidity sensor, and battery charge sensor.

9. The system as claimed in claim 5 wherein said RFID tag comprises a low power transceiver IC.

10. The system as claimed in claim 5 wherein said RFID tag is a UHF active tag.

11. The system as claimed in claim 10 wherein said RFID tag is a sensory tag.

12. A method for simultaneous wireless charging, tracking and monitoring one or more equipments, the method comprising

actuating a coordinator using a management server for transmitting UHF radio waves;

receiving the transmitted UHF radio waves by a receiver;

converting the UHF radio waves into DC power by employing an energy harvesting IC for charging a battery pack of said equipment, and simultaneously activating an RFID tag for receiving one or more operational parameters related to said equipment by employing said one or more sensors and transmitting said received one or more operational parameters by using short range data communication protocol via said coordinator.

13. The method as claimed in claim 12 wherein said one or more operational parameters related to said equipment are selected from the group consisting of equipment battery status, position of the equipment, presence of the equipment in a prescribed location, humidity inside the equipment, temperature inside the equipment, unique ID of the asset, confidential manufacturer data, and device usage status.

14. The method as claimed in claim 12 wherein the short range data communication protocol used for transmitting one or more operational parameters is selected from the group consisting of IEEE 802.15.4, ZigBee, and Bluetooth low power.

15. The method as claimed in claim 12 wherein said one or more operational parameters are transmitted from the receiver to coordinator by employing Direct-sequence spread spectrum protocol at transmitting power level of +36 dBm.