Radio frequency identification fast tag response method and system

Abstract

A method and system for processing radio frequency identification (“RFID”) communication device data, the method and system including measuring an energy level of a RFID signal received on a first communication channel, measuring an energy level of the RFID signal received on a second communication channel, selecting the communication channel with the greater energy level, and acquiring data samples from the RFID signal received on the selected channel. The method and system for processing RFID communication device data can further include generating a preamble from a series of the acquired data samples.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A more complete understanding of the present invention, and the attendant advantages and features thereof, will be more readily understood by reference to the following detailed description when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein like designations refer to like elements, and wherein:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a communication system constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of various aspects of the communication system of FIG. 1 constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the controller module and the RF module of an RFID reader constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention;

FIG. 4A is a block diagram of a decoder module of a RFID reader constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention;

FIG. 4B is a block diagram of a data frame for processing by the decoder module of FIG. 4A; and

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a process to increase reader to tag data throughput in accordance with the principles of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Referring now to the drawing figures in which like reference designators refer to like elements, there is shown in FIG. 1 a diagram of an exemplary system constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention and designated generally as “100”. Communication system 100 provides an electronic identification system in the embodiment described herein. Further, the described communication system 100 is configured for backscatter communications as described in detail below. Other communication protocols can be utilized in other embodiments.

The depicted communication system 100 includes at least one reader 102 having a decoder 104 and at least one electronic wireless remote communication device 106. Radio frequency (“RF”) communications can occur between a reader 102 and remote communication devices 106 for use in identification systems and product monitoring systems as exemplary applications.

Devices 106 include radio frequency identification (“RFID”) devices in the embodiments described herein. Multiple wireless remote communication devices 106 typically communicate with reader 102 although only one such device 106 is illustrated in FIG. 1.

Although multiple communication devices 106 can be employed in communication system 100, there is typically no communication between multiple devices 106 themselves. Instead, the multiple communication devices 106 communicate with reader 102. Multiple communication devices 106 can be used in the same field of reader 102, i.e., within the communication range of reader 102. Similarly, multiple readers 102 can be in proximity to one or more of devices 106.

Remote communication device 106 is configured to interface with reader 102 using a wireless medium in one embodiment. More specifically, communication between communication device 106 and reader 102 occur via an electromagnetic link, such as an RF link, e.g., at microwave frequencies in the described embodiment. Reader 102 is configured to output forward link wireless communication signals 108. Further, reader 102 is operable to receive return link wireless communication signals 10, e.g., a reply signal, from devices 106 responsive to the forward link communication signals 108. In accordance with the above, forward link communication signals and return link communication signals are wireless signals, such as radio frequency signals. Other forms of electromagnetic communication signals, such as infrared, acoustic, and the like are contemplated.

Reader unit 102 includes at least one antenna 112 as well as transmitting and receiving circuitry, similar to that implemented in devices 106. Antenna 112 comprises a transmit/receive antenna connected to reader 102. In an alternative embodiment, reader 102 can have separate transmit and receive antennas.

In operation, reader 102 transmits a forward link communication signal 108, e.g., an interrogation command signal, via antenna 112. Communication device 106 is operable to receive the incoming forward link signal 108. Upon receiving signal 108, communication device 106 responds by communicating the responsive return link communication signal 110, e.g., a responsive reply signal. Communications within system 10 are described in greater detail below.

In one embodiment, responsive return link communication signal 110, e.g., a responsive reply signal, is encoded with information that uniquely identifies or labels the particular device 106 that is transmitting so as to identify any object, animal, or person with which communication device 106 is associated. Communication devices 106 can be RFID tags that are attached to objects or people where each tag is programmed with information relating to the object or person to which it is attached. The information can take a wide variety of forms and can be more or less detailed depending on the needs to be served by the information. For example, the information may include merchandise identification information, such as a universal product code. A tag may include identifying information and security clearance information for an authorized person to whom the tag has been issued. A tag may also have a unique serial number, in order to uniquely identify an associated object or person. Alternatively, a tag may include more detailed information relating to an object or person, such as a complete description of the object or person. As a further exemplary alternative, a tag may store a single bit, in order to provide for theft control or simple tracking of entry and departure through the detection of an object or person at a particular reader, without necessarily specifically identifying the object or person.

Remote device 106 is configured to output a reply signal within reply link communication 110 responsive to receiving forward link wireless communication 108. Reader 102 is configured to receive and recognize the reply signal within the reply link communication signal 110, e.g., return signal. The reply signal can be utilized to identify the particular transmitting communication device 106 and may include various types of information corresponding to the communication device 106 including but not limited to stored data, configuration data or other command information.

An exemplary embodiment of a reader 102 is explained with reference to FIG. 2. In this embodiment, the reader 102 has a RF module or unit 200 and a controller module or unit 202. The RF module 200 includes a radio signal source 204 for synthesizing radio frequency signals, e.g., an interrogating RF signal, that outputs a RF signal to transceiver 206 of the reader 102. The interrogating RF signal from the source 204 uses a suitable frequency such as 915 MHz. When the radio signal source 204 is energized, transceiver 206 transmits the interrogating RF signal (typically after the RF signal has been modulated with an information signal) through antenna 112 to a suitable antenna 114 such as a dipole antenna at a communication device 106.

Modulated signals are received from communication device 106 via antenna 112 and passed to transceiver 206. Controller module 202 of reader 102 receives the digital equivalent of the modulated signal. In one embodiment, controller module 202 produces signals in a sequence having a pattern identifying the pattern of the 1 's and 0's in read only memory (“ROM”) 208 of communication device 106. For example, the received and processed sequence may be compared in reader 102 with a desired sequence to determine whether the object being identified is being sought by reader 102 or not.

Continuing to refer to FIG. 2, one embodiment of remote communication device 106 is explained. The depicted communication device 106 includes a modulator 210 having a receiver/transmitter as described below and a data source such as ROM 208, which provides a sequence of binary 1's and binary 0's in an individual pattern to identify the object. In this embodiment, a binary “1” in ROM 208 causes a modulator 210 to produce a first plurality of signal cycles and a binary “0” in ROM 208 causes the modulator 210 to produce a second plurality of signal cycles different from the first plurality of signals. The pluralities of signals cycles are sequentially produced by the modulator 210 to represent the pattern of binary 1's and binary 0's which identify the object are introduced to the dipole antenna 114 for transmission to antenna 112 at reader 102. In another embodiment, the communication device 106 can have separate receive and transmit antennas. Communication device 106 may further include an optional power source (not shown) connected to modulator 210 to supply operational power to modulator 210.

The exemplary embodiment of reader 102 in FIG. 2 is described in further detail with reference to FIG. 3. As shown in FIG. 3, the reader 102 includes a RF module or unit 200 and a controller processor module or unit 202. RF module 200 includes a signal-transmitting antenna 112A, a signal-receiving antenna 112B, a first RF interface 300, a second RF interface 302, a power amplifier 304, a modulator 306, a first band pass filter 308, a digital-to-analog converter (“DAC”) 310, a switching regulator 312, an erasable programmable read-only memory (“EPROM”) 314, a static random access memory (“SRAM”) 316, a synthesizer 318, a demodulator 320, second and third band pass filters 322, analog-to-digital converters (“ADC”) 324, a digital signal processor (“DSP”) 326, a decoder 104, an optional logic device (“LD”) 328 and a communication port 330. The synthesizer 318 transmits a reference signal to the modulator 306 and demodulator 320 that can be used to synchronize, filter and/or adjust the received communication signals with the transmitted communication signals. Decoder 104 provides for the acquisition and processing of the received communication signals, which are described in greater detail with reference to FIG. 4A.

The modulator 306 receives the reference signal from the synthesizer 318 and inquiry data from the DSP 326. Prior to any modulation, DAC 310 converts the inquiry data from the DSP 326 via logic device 328 from a digital signal into an analog signal and provides the converted analog signal to the band pass filter 308, which can restrict a frequency-band of the converted analog signal to a predetermined frequency band. Modulator 306 modulates the reference signal in accordance with the inquiry data, and outputs this modulated signal to the power amplifier 304. Optional logic device 328 can perform a command signal wave-shaping function of the RF module 200 in order to allow the DSP 326 to free up additional processing bandwidth to perform other RF module 200 functions.

Power amplifier 304 amplifies the modulated signal received from the modulator 306, and outputs this amplified signal to the first RF interface 300. Subsequently, signal-transmitting antenna 112A radiates the signal into air as radio-signals. Switching regulator 312 provides for the management of input power to the RF module 200.

Signal-receiving antenna 112B receives radio-signals, and passes the received radio-signals to the demodulator 320 via the second RF interface 302. The demodulator 320 extracts information from the received radio-signals and passes the extracted information signals and received radio-signals to the second and third bandpass filters 322, which may restrict a frequency-band of the extracted information signals and received radio-signals to a predetermined frequency band. The demodulator 320 can function as an I/Q receiver to provide two demodulated outputs which are the “I” output which is a result of product detecting the received signal against an in-phase local oscillator signal, while the “Q” output is a result of product detecting the received signal against a local oscillator signal with a phase shift of 90 degrees. The second and third bandpass filters 322 pass the restricted radio-signals to the analog-to-digital converters 324, which can convert the filtered radio-signals into digital signals for processing by the DSP 326.

Continuing to refer to FIG. 3, controller processor module 202 includes a communication port 332 to interface with communication port 330 of RF module 200 via a wireless or wired communication link 334. Controller processor module 202 further includes a SRAM 336, a flash memory 338, a controller processor 340, a universal serial bus (“USB”) 342, a memory expansion module 344 and a communications block 346.

Controller processor 340 can be any of various commercially available central processing units, and it provides the communication and signal processing of controller processor module 202, including the communications with RF module 200 via the communication port 332. Controller processor 340 employs SRAM 336 and flash memory 338 for typical storage of communication data and the like, as well as providing resources for the operating system (“OS”), e.g., Linux/CE, of the controller processor module 202. Of course, the present invention is not limited to such and other forms of non-volatile memory, such as disk drives can be used. Memory expansion module 344 provides for expanding the controller processor module 202 to serve as an application processor. Communications block 346 provides an interface for accessing a communication link to a network, for example an Ethernet link or a wireless link.

FIG. 4A illustrates an exemplary decoder module or unit 104 of a RFID reader 102 constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention. It should be noted that the decoder 104 illustrated in FIG. 4A is an exemplary decoder 104 that is used in a RFID interrogation system of the present invention and the invention disclosed herein is not limited to a particular design or type of decoder 104. Decoder module 104 includes an energy level detector/receiver 400 for detecting and receiving down converted signals, such as I output, from a demodulator 320 via a communication path such as first channel 402, e.g., “channel I”, and Q output from second channel 404, e.g., “channel Q”. Decoder module 104 can further include selector 406, processor 408 and decoding circuit 410. Analog to digital converters 324 (FIG. 3) can supply response signal samples for decoding on the first and second channels 402, 404 that are passed through the front-end filtering that may be a portion of energy level detector/receiver 400, selection switch 406 and processor 408 to decoding circuit 410. The signal samples can be digitized or hard limited by processor 408 and therefore converted into a high or low value based on a high/low threshold prior to the actual decoding of the signal samples by decoding circuit 410.

A series of signal samples can be processed one bit at a time to comprise all or portions of a protocol response frame such as frame 420 illustrated in FIG. 4B. Energy level detector/receiver 400 measures the energy levels of the first channel 402 and the second channel 404 and passes this information on to selector 406. Selector 406 determines which channel has the greater energy level and passes that channel's signal to processor 408, which filters and hard-limits the selected signal, prior to actual decoding by decoding circuit 410. This advantageously reduces the memory requirements since samples are acquired for one, instead of two channels, which in turn also increases the data throughput as a single channel is selected or chosen for potential processing and decoding. Selector 406 can be various types of comparators including but not limited to voltage or digital comparators. Decoder module 104 may include hardware, software, microcode and firmware or any combination thereof for processing the response signal samples on channel I and channel Q, as discussed more fully below. Although the processor 408 and decoding circuit 410 are shown as separate components in FIG. 4A, it is anticipated that these components could be integrated with each other or with energy level detector/receiver 400 and selection switch 406.

FIG. 4B illustrates an exemplary protocol response frame 420 of information received by the decoder 104 from RFID communication devices 106. In this embodiment, frame 420 includes a preamble field 422, which is typically 6 bits wide, a protocol counter string, e.g., random number 16 bits (“RN16”), data and cyclic redundancy check (“CRC”) field 424, and a dumb bit field 426. CRC is a type of hash function used to produce a checksum, which is a small, fixed number of bits, against a block of data.

FIG. 5 illustrates an exemplary flowchart of a process to increase tag data throughput according an aspect of the present invention. At step S502, a reader 102 sends a command to the remote communication devices 106, e.g., RFID tags. The reader 102 receives a response or at least what the reader 102 considers to be a response at the receiver 400, and measures an energy level on a first channel 402 and a second channel 404 (step S504). There are various ways that the energy levels may be determined including the use of a sampling technique for the two channels, e.g., channel I and channel Q. Although the measuring of energy levels in the first and second channels occurs simultaneously in step S504, the measuring may occur separately and in any order. Once the energy levels are measured for the first 402 and second 404 channels, the energy levels are compared and the channel with the greater energy level (and its frame of samples) is chosen by selector 406 for further possessing (step S506). This advantageously increases the processing of the communication data as the samples are acquired for one, instead of two channels. At step S508, data samples for the selected or chosen channel are acquired. In this embodiment, the data samples are processed during the time periods between sample acquisitions (step S510). This processing of data samples during the periods of time between sample acquisitions is referred to as in-line processing and improves communication throughput because data is decoded between samples, and the decoding is performed on a portion of the received data block or frame 420 instead of the entire received data block or frame 420.

Prior to performing traditional full block type filtering on the selected channel communication with data frame 420, preamble 422 (or another field or portion) of the selected frame is decoded at step S512. Preamble field 422 is analyzed or checked and a determination of whether preamble 422 is valid is made at step S514. If preamble 422 is valid, then the data field of the protocol response frame 420 is processed at step S516. Otherwise, at step S518, the protocol response frame 420 is discarded and another command is transmitted to the tags 106 by the RFID reader 102 (step S520). For example, the previous command requesting status from a selected tag with an ID may be retransmitted or another tag ID may be selected for data processing.

As previously referenced, decoder 104 may include hardware, software, microcode and firmware or any combination thereof for processing the response signals on channel I and channel Q and for selecting which channel to process. For example, an analog-to-digital converter (“ADC”) may be configured to respond to the above algorithm for selecting either decoder “channel I” input or decoder “channel Q” input for further processing.

Significant processing is saved by testing the integrity of the received communication signal prior to performing signal processing on a received signal, as filtering and signal conversion require consume a fairly substantial amount of processing resources.

The present invention provides a method for improved processing of RFID tag data by determining received data integrity prior to signal block processing.

It will be appreciated by persons skilled in the art that the present invention is not limited to what has been particularly shown and described herein above. In addition, unless mention was made above to the contrary, it should be noted that all of the accompanying drawings are not to scale. A variety of modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention, which is limited only by the following claims.

Claims

1. A method for processing radio frequency identification (RFID) communication device data, the method comprising: measuring an energy level of a RFID signal received on a first communication channel;measuring an energy level of the RFID signal received on a second communication channel;selecting the communication channel with the greater energy level; andacquiring data samples from the RFID signal received on the selected channel.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a preamble from a series of the acquired data samples.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein generating a preamble from a series of the acquired data samples occurs during periods of time between acquiring data samples.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising testing data integrity of the preamble.

5. The method of claim 4, if it is determined that the preamble is valid, processing a data frame associated with the preamble.

6. The method of claim 4, if it is determined that the preamble is invalid, discarding a data frame associated with the preamble.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising receiving another command from the first communication channel and the second communication channel.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein acquiring data samples from the RFID signal received on the selected channel includes applying a threshold value to determine a logical state of at least one of the acquired data samples.

9. A decoder for use in an RFID communication system, the decoder comprising: a receiver in communication with a first communication channel and a second communication channel, the first communication channel and the second communication channel receiving communication signals from a plurality of remote RFID communication devices;a selector, the selector measuring respective energy levels on the first communication channel and the second communication channel, the selector selecting one of the first communication channel and the second communication channel based on the measured energy level; anddecoding circuitry, the decoding circuitry decodes the communication signals received from the plurality of remote RFID communication devices.

10. The decoder of claim 9, further comprising front-end filtering circuitry for filtering the communication signals received from the plurality of remote RFID communication devices.

11. The decoder of claim 9, wherein the communication signals comprise at least a portion of a data block, the portion of the data block used to determine whether to decode the complete data block.

12. The decoder of claim 9, wherein the selector is one of a) a voltage comparator and b) a digital comparator.

13. A storage medium storing a computer program which when executed by a processing unit performs a method for processing radio frequency identification (RFID) communication device data, the method comprising: measuring an energy level of a RFID signal received on a first communication channel;measuring an energy level of the RFID signal received on a second communication channel;selecting the communication channel with the greater energy level; andacquiring data samples from the RFID signal received on the selected channel.

14. The storage medium of claim 13, further comprising generating a preamble from a series of the acquired data samples.

15. The storage medium of claim 14, wherein generating a preamble from a series of the acquired data samples occurs during periods of time between acquiring data samples.

16. The storage medium of claim 14, further comprising testing data integrity of the preamble.

17. The storage medium of claim 16, if it is determined that the preamble is valid, processing a data frame associated with the preamble.

18. The storage medium of claim 16, if it is determined that the preamble is invalid, discarding a data frame associated with the preamble.

19. The storage medium of claim 18, further comprising receiving a new command from the first communication channel and the second communication channel of the decoder.

20. The storage medium of claim 19, wherein acquiring data samples from the RFID signal received on the selected channel includes applying a threshold value to determine a logical state of at least one of the acquired data samples.