Radio frequency identification (RFID) tag location verification using acousto-magnetic detection

An electronic article surveillance (EAS) system tag comprising:

• an acousto-magnetic (AM) interrogation signal detection subsystem;
• and
• a non-AM wireless technology transceiver other than a radio frequency identification (RFID) transceiver, operative to transmit a signal indicating a detection of an AM interrogation signal such that the AM interrogation signal is configured as a gate function for the EAS system tag to transmit a response signal of the EAS system tag via the wireless communication technology other than AM or RFID only upon detecting the AM interrogation signal.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium of an electronic article surveillance (EAS) system, storing code thereon that when executed by one or more processors of the EAS system is operable to:

• transmit concurrently, an acousto-magnetic (AM) interrogation signal into an AM interrogation zone of an EAS system, and a wireless non-AM signal, other than a radio frequency identification (RFID) signal, into a non-AM zone of the EAS system, the AM interrogation zone and the non-AM zone overlapping in a use of two different wireless communication technologies to form a zone of interest such that the AM interrogation signal is configured as a gate function for a first tag to transmit a response signal of the first tag via a wireless communication technology other than AM or RFID only upon detecting the AM interrogation signal;
• and
• indicate a presence of a first tag of the EAS system in the zone of interest upon a concurrent detection of both wireless non-AM response signal of the first tag in response to the non-AM signal and an AM response signal of the first tag in response to the AM interrogation signal.