Faraday enclosure for improved RFID detection
AssigneeC & A Associates, Inc.
InventorsRoland Dustin Landry, Carey S. Solomon, James S. Brown
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An RFID reading enclosure having a Faraday cage including a cage floor and a cage hood hinged to the cage floor. The cage hood includes a RF blocking fabric formed on a frame with the interior of the Faraday cage having a volume between 4.5 and 30 ft3. There are at least two RFID antennas positioned to transmit signals into the Faraday cage, with the two RFID antennas having a transmission axis along different orientations.
Claims22
An RFID reading enclosure comprising:
- (a) a Faraday cage including a cage floor and a cage hood hinged to the cage floor along a side of the cage floor, thereby allowing the hood to pivot between an open cage position and a closed cage position;
- (b) wherein the cage hood includes (i) a RF blocking fabric formed on a frame, (ii) at least one hinge on a first side, and (iii) a handle on an opposing second side;
- (c) wherein the cage hood is configured to require between about 5 and 15 pounds of vertical force to lift the cage hood;
- (d) wherein an interior of the Faraday cage has a volume between 4.5 and 30 ft3:
- and
- (e) at least two RFID antennas positioned to transmit signals into the Faraday cage, each of the two RFID antennas having a transmission axis and the two transmission axes having different orientations.
A method of reading a plurality of RFID tagged items in a container, wherein the plurality of RFID tagged items exceeds 50 items, the method comprising the steps of:
- (a) placing the container within an RFID reading enclosure, the RFID reading enclosure including:
- (i) a Faraday cage including a cage floor and a cage hood hinged to the cage floor along a side of the cage floor, thereby allowing the hood to pivot between an open cage position and a closed cage position;
- (ii) wherein the cage hood includes a RF blocking fabric formed on a frame;
- (iii) wherein an interior of the Faraday cage has a volume between 2.5 and 35 ft3:
- and
- (iv) at least two RFID antennas positioned to transmit signals into the Faraday cage, each of the two RFID antennas having a transmission axis and the two transmission axes having different orientations;
- (b) performing at least one RFID read cycle using the antennas;
- (c) opening the enclosure, shuffling the items within the container and/or changing the orientation of the container;
- and
- (d) performing at least one further RFID read cycle prior to the container being removed from the enclosure.
An RFID reading enclosure comprising:
- (a) a Faraday cage including a cage floor and a cage hood, wherein the cage hood is configured to move between an open cage position and a closed cage position;
- (b) wherein the cage hood and the cage floor include a RF blocking material;
- (c) wherein the Faraday cage in the closed cage position is configured to create a RF seal between the cage floor and cage hood which substantially prevents the escape of RF signals from the Faraday cage;
- (d) wherein an interior of the Faraday cage has a volume between 2 and 50 ft3:
- and
- (e) at least two RFID antennas positioned to transmit signals into the Faraday cage, each of the two RFID antennas having a transmission axis and the two transmission axes having different orientations.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.