Methods and systems for controlling antennas and reader devices
AssigneeT-Mobile Innovations LLC
InventorLyle W. Paczkowski
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An inventory system comprises an antenna configured to emit interrogation signals in a first direction toward one or more tags, a reader device configured to receive data from the one or more tags, and a controller. The controller is configured to detect a trigger event occurring within an area including the antenna, cause an adjustment to at least one antenna setting of the antenna or at least one reader device setting of the reader device based on the trigger event and a policy associated with the trigger event, and instruct the antenna or the reader device to emit an interrogation signal in a direction of one or more tags and read data from the one or more tags in accordance with the adjustment to at least one antenna setting or the at least one reader device setting.
Claims20
A method performed in an inventory system to control a plurality of antennas and a plurality of reader devices of the inventory system, comprising:
- controlling, by a controller in the inventory system, a plurality of antenna settings of the antennas in the inventory system, wherein the controller is communicatively coupled to each of the antennas;
- controlling, by the controller, a plurality of reader device settings of the reader devices in the inventory system, wherein the controller is communicatively coupled to each of the reader devices;
- detecting, by the controller, a trigger event occurring within an area including the antennas, wherein the trigger event is based on at least one of inventory movement, an environmental change, a time of day, a security alert, a maintenance schedule, an area layout change, a signal interference, or a high density of tags;
- causing, by the controller, an adjustment to at least one of the antenna settings or the reader device settings based on the trigger event and a policy associated with the trigger event;
- recording, by the controller, the adjustment to the at least one of the antenna settings or the reader device settings in a system setting log in association with a description of the trigger event and a time of the adjustment;
- and
- instructing, by the controller, at least one of the antennas or the reader devices to emit an interrogation signal or read data from one or more tags in accordance with the adjustment to at least one of the antenna settings or the reader device settings.
A method performed by a controller in an inventory system to control a plurality of reader devices of the inventory system, comprising:
- detecting, by a controller in the inventory system, a trigger event occurring within an area including a reader device, wherein the trigger event is based on at least one of inventory movement, an environmental change, a time of day, a security alert, a maintenance schedule, an area layout change, a signal interference, or a high density of tags;
- causing, by the controller, an adjustment to a reader device setting of the reader device based on the trigger event and a policy associated with the trigger event;
- recording, by the controller, the adjustment to the reader device setting in a system setting log in association with a description of the trigger event and a time of the adjustment;
- instructing, by the controller, the reader device to emit an interrogation signal in a predefined direction or read data from the predefined direction in accordance with the adjustment to the reader device setting;
- receiving, by the controller, the data from the reader device for storage at a data store of the controller;
- and
- processing, by the controller, the data to perform inventory tracking and management tasks based on the data internally within an inventory environment including the reader device and the controller.
An inventory system, comprising:
- an antenna configured to emit interrogation signals in a first direction toward one or more tags;
- a reader device configured to receive data from the one or more tags;
- and
- a controller communicatively coupled to the antenna and the reader device and comprising a controller application stored on a memory, wherein the controller application, when executed by a processor, causes the controller to be configured to:
- detect a trigger event occurring within an area including the antenna, wherein the trigger event is based on at least one of inventory movement, an environmental change, a time of day, a security alert, a maintenance schedule, an area layout change, a signal interference, or a high density of tags;
- cause an adjustment to at least one antenna setting of the antenna or at least one reader device setting of the reader device based on the trigger event and a policy associated with the trigger event;
- and
- instruct the antenna or the reader device to emit an interrogation signal in a direction of one or more tags and read data from the one or more tags in accordance with the adjustment to the at least one antenna setting or the at least one reader device setting.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.