Method and apparatus for locating mobile tags
AssigneeRF Technologies, Inc.
InventorsJay Werb, Emin Martinian, Melanie Swiderek, Samuel Levy, Peter Stein
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and apparatus for determining tag location is disclosed. Tag reference data may be stored, e.g., in the form of a lookup table, as a trained neural network, and so on, and used to determine the location of tags. Readings used to determine tag location and/or preliminary tag locations may be filtered to produce reliable tag location indications. Packages of user configurable parameters can be provided and used for the filtering of the preliminary tag locations. Confidence levels may also be generated for determined tag locations and used, for example, to indicate how well an asset location system can distinguish between different tag locations.
Claims46
A system for determining a location of a tag, comprising:
- at least one receiver that receives a signal from the tag;
- a controller that communicates with the at least one receiver;
- and
- a memory that stores information regarding previous communication between at least one receiver and a reference tag while the reference tag was in at least two different locations;
- wherein the controller determines a location of the tag based on information stored in the memory regarding the previous communication with the reference tag;
- and
- wherein the controller provides a plurality of configuration setting packages that can be selected by a user.
A method for locating a tag, comprising:
- receiving a signal from a reference tag;
- storing information regarding the signal received from the reference tag, the signal being received from the reference tag while the reference tag is in at least two locations;
- determining a location of the tag based on the stored information regarding the signal received from the reference tag;
- and
- providing a plurality of configuration setting packages that can be selected by a user.
A method of setting up a system for determining a location of a tag within a facility, comprising the acts of:
- providing a template of at least one tag locating system comprising at least one zone layout including a receiver locations layout and corresponding rules;
- selecting a zone layout;
- placing receivers at receiver locations defined by the receiver locations layout;
- and
- using the corresponding rules to set up the system.
A method of determining a location of a tag, comprising:
- providing at least one device to communicate with the tag;
- receiving a signal representing communication with the tag;
- determining a preliminary location for the tag based on the signal;
- filtering the preliminary location for the tag using one of sticky rule filtering, sequential filtering, average filtering, time filtering and a tag location publication delay, before using the preliminary location to determine the tag location;
- receiving user input configuration parameters that are used to adjust the filtering of the preliminary location;
- and
- providing packages of user configurable parameters that can be selected and used for filtering preliminary location data from a specific zone.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.