Electronic inventory system for stacked containers

An inventory method comprising the steps of:

• affixing individual ones of a plurality of electronic tags to corresponding individual ones of a plurality of objects, each respective electronic tag having a long range antenna portion and a separate short range antenna portion;
• nesting said objects within a larger nesting container, the nesting container having an interrogator unit;
• applying an interrogatory signal to said nesting container, wherein said interrogator unit is considered to be a master electronic tag;
• while all of the electronic tags associated with the objects are considered to be slave electronic tags;
• and
• communicating information from said slave electronic tags to said interrogator unit in response to a signal received from said interrogator unit, wherein the long range antenna portion of at least one of the plurality of electronic tags is for communicating with said interrogator unit, and wherein the short range antenna portion of said at least one of the plurality of electronic tags is for communicating with the long range antenna portion of an adjacent one of said plurality of electronic tags.

A method of selecting master electronic tags from a group of electronic tags, comprising the steps of:

• mounting individual ones of a plurality of electronic tags to individual ones of a plurality of objects, each electronic tag comprising a long range antenna and a short range antenna
• stacking said objects to form a stack, wherein each long range antenna is in close proximity to a short range antenna of an adjacent electronic tag, excepting for one which is adjacent to an exposed surface of said stack;
• applying a first signal which is received by a plurality of electronic tags, said first signal causing each tag which receives said first signal to transmit a slave signal over its short range antenna, said slave signal is transmitted in such a manner that it can only be received by a long range antenna which is affixed to an adjacent tag from the tag associated with the short range antenna which is transmitting the slave signal;
• and
• monitoring signals over said long range antennas to determine which long range antennas are not receiving a slave signal, any electronic tag which does not receive a slave signal after it receives the first signal will be considered to be a master electronic tag, while each electronic tag which receives a slave signal will be considered to be a slave electronic tag.

A method of transferring information from a first slave electronic tag to a master electronic tag, the first slave electronic tag being attached to a first object, the master electronic tag being attached to a second object, each of the master electronic tag and the first slave electronic tag comprising at least one long range antenna and a separate at least one short range antenna, comprising the steps of:

• providing a self inventory command to the master electronic tag;
• issuing a first slave command from said short range antenna of said master electronic tag to said long range antenna of said first slave electronic tag, thereby establishing a communication link between said master electronic tag and said first slave electronic tag upon the reception of said first slave command by said first slave electronic tag;
• and
• transferring first data relating to said first slave electronic tag, from said long range antenna of said first slave electronic tag to said short range antenna of said master electronic tag.