Patent Application
20240298179
This document pertains generally, but not by way of limitation, to access control systems, and particularly but not by way of limitation to coordination of readers in access control systems that utilize ultra-wide band (UWB) technology.
Ultra-wide band (UWB) is a radio frequency (RF) technique that uses short, low power, pulses over a wide frequency spectrum. The pulses are on the order of millions of individual pulses per second. The width of the frequency spectrum is generally greater than 500 megahertz or twenty percent of an arithmetic center frequency.
UWB can be used for communication by encoding data via time modulation (e.g., pulse-position encoding). Here, symbols are specified by pulses on a subset of time units out of a set of available time units. Other examples of UWB encodings can include amplitude modulation and polarity modulation. The wide band transmission tends to be more robust to multipath fading than carrier-based transmission techniques. Further, the lower power of pulses at any given frequency tend to reduce interference with carrier-based communication techniques.
UWB can be used in radar operations, providing localization accuracies on the scale of tens of centimeters. Due to the possibly variable absorption and reflection of different frequencies in a pulse, both surface and obstructed (e.g., covered) features of an object can be detected. In some cases, the localization provides an angle of incidence in addition to distance.
In the drawings, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, like numerals may describe similar components in different views. Like numerals having different letter suffixes may represent different instances of similar components. Some embodiments are illustrated by way of example, and not limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which:
Systems and methods are disclosed herein for coordinating readers in an access control system. A user carrying a credential device may approach one or more readers of the access control system. The readers may be associated with respective facilities (such as a door) used to control access to respective secure areas or resources. Upon the credential device coming into a threshold range of one of the readers, a credential may be exchanged using a low energy wireless protocol, such as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), for example. The reader may then establish a secret, such as a scrambled time stamp (STS), with the credential device to facilitate secure ranging using ultra-wide band (UWB) communication.
The reader may share the secret with one or more other readers of the access control system such that the other readers may also perform UWB ranging for the credential device either together with, or in place of, the initial reader. This may be advantageous to provide more robust ranging or to perform load balancing for a system that sees a lot of traffic. The ranging by the readers can be used to identify intent information for the user to determine if an intent trigger has been met, such as that the user has moved within a threshold distance of an associated facility of one of the readers, such as a door or a turnstile, for example.
The access control system 100 illustrated in
Wireless PACS have generally used either near field communications (NFC) such as radio frequency identification (RFID), or personal area network (PAN) technologies, such as the IEEE 802.15.1, BLE, etc. In an example, a first transmission or exchange (illustrated by dashed line 110) via one of these communication protocols with longer range capabilities, or in some cases with less accuracy (e.g., BLE, Wi-Fi, or other) can be used to provide a credential from the credential device 104 to a reader 102a. BLE devices have a range of tens of meters (e.g., ten to twenty meters). Thus, credential exchange can be accomplished as the user approaches the reader 102a or 102b. PAN standards do not, however, offer accurate physical tracking of devices (e.g., ranging, positioning, etc.). Thus, it can be difficult for the reader to determine whether the user actually intends to gain access to the secure area without some additional evidence of intent.
To address these issues, localization techniques (e.g., using secure UWB ranging) can be combined with PAN discovery and key exchange. Here, the credential device 104 and the reader 102a or 102b coordinate secure ranging using a PAN technology. This includes the reader 102a or 102b providing a secret (e.g., a scrambled time stamp (STS)) that may be used to mark ranging messages to prevent spoofing. The credential device 104 will also provide the credentials during the same PAN session in which the secret was shared. The reader 102a or 102b can decrypt or otherwise prepare the credentials as it would normally do except that the credentials are cached until an intent trigger occurs.
Thus, once the credential has been exchanged using BLE, for example, UWB communication may be employed for ranging the credential device 104 for detection of the intent trigger. For example, the reader 102a or 102b may use UWB to physically locate the credential device 104. In some examples, the UWB is activated after the secret is shared to conserve energy, which can be useful for battery powered readers or credential devices. The physical location of UWB can be more accurate than some conventional techniques and can be accurate to the tens of centimeters, providing both range and direction to the reader. This accuracy far surpasses the roughly ten-meter accuracy of PAN when readers are not coordinated. The precision of UWB accuracy can provide a useful ingredient to user intent determinations. For example, several zones can be defined, such as near the reader, at the reader, etc., to provide different contexts for understanding user intent. Moreover, the accuracy of the tracking enables an accurate model of user motion from which intent can be discerned. Thus, the reader can categorize user motion as likely approaching the reader, or simply walking past.
Once the intent of the user of the credential device 104 is identified, the reader 102a or 102b can then release the credential (sometimes referred to as PACS bits) for processing, such as sending the credential to the controller 108 to determine the access permissions for the user of the credential device 104, or to directly unlock the respective door 106a or 106b (e.g., in an offline reader). This two-step authentication sequence may reduce computational time that can lead to delays in a door opening for a user (which can be referred to as latency). That is, by this approach, the authentication and communication between the reader 102a or 102b and the credential device 104 is effectively already performed by the time the system 100 has determined that the user of the credential device 104 intends to enter the respective door 106a or 106b and the user of the credential device 104 reaches the respective door 106a or 106b.
In some examples, if the intent trigger does not occur within a time-period, or an anti-intent trigger occurs-such as moving away from the reader-the cached credentials may be cleared. This can be useful as many credentials can be cached in a reader 102a or 102b, but potentially on a smaller subset of those can be used in an authentication process (e.g., based on later predicted intent). In some examples, if the reader 102a or 102b has knowledge of whether or not the credentials provide access to the secured area-as can be the case with offline readers-the credentials are not cached if they do not provide access to the secured area. Also, in this example, UWB location is not activated.
In some examples, credential caching or UWB ranging systems or components can be packaged in an “add-on” housing and connected to an existing reader via an extension bus. Such add-on components can include a secure element to securely store cached credentials and one or more UWB front ends to facilitate UWB communication for the readers 102a and 102b. This retrofit add-on type device can increase the reader's capabilities without replacement.
To obtain more robust intent information, both readers 102a and 102b may employ UWB ranging together to identify an intent of the user of the credential device 104. For example, multiple readers 102a and 102b may employ UWB ranging to more accurately identify a direction, speed, or other intent information for ascertaining an intent of the user. When using secure UWB localization, in order to effectively function in the system, each reader 102a and 102b needs to have the secret being used for the secure ranging. Thus, in some examples, the readers 102a and 102b may be connected (e.g., via BLE, a mesh network, etc.) to share the secret. This reduces the need for exchanging the secret between each reader 102a and 102b and each credential device 104. In some examples, this exchange can also exchange the cached PACS IDs to all readers 102a and 102b, e.g., from the initial reader 102a to which the credential device 104 connected. By doing so, only one credential and secret exchange is typically needed for each credential device 104, regardless of how many readers are utilized to perform ranging.
A coordinated PACS, for example, can use the controller 108 to coordinate readers 102a and 102b, whether it is centrally managed or offline. That is, the readers 102a and 102b can operate as remote radio heads to the controller 108, with the controller 108 performing the credential caching, intent determination, and credential forwarding to a host server or commanding an actuator to operate, for example. A coordinated PACS facilitates UWB positioning of credential device 104 with one or more of the connected readers 102a and 102b. In some examples, the controller 108 can load balance UWB localization responsibilities. This can be helpful in dense credential device scenarios, such as at ticketing speed-gates.
Once the secret has been shared, one or both readers 102a and 102b may perform UWB ranging (illustrated by dashed lines 112) to determine whether to release the credential and provide access through a respective door 106a or 106b. This may be done by determining an intent of the user of the credential device 104, for example. In some examples, if UWB ranges the credential device 104 close enough (some meters) to one of the readers 102a or 102b or other target (e.g., center of one of the doors 106a or 106b), the respective reader 102a or 102b may transmit the cached PACS ID to a host server, for example, which can trigger opening of the respective door 106a or 106b. The readers 102a and 102b may then delete the cached PACS ID.
In another example, system 100 may be configured such that reader 102b may experience a much lower load than the reader 102a. For example, the door 106b may be accessed many fewer times on average than the door 106a. Therefore, it may be advantageous to hand off ranging to the reader 102b for determination of intent information for a user, even if the user is closer to the reader 102a and more likely to access the door 106a. Once the credential device 104 is in range of the reader 102a for low energy communication (such as BLE), the credential can be exchanged and the reader 102a (or controller 108) can hand off UWB ranging and/or intent determination to the reader 102b by sharing the established secret and/or credential information with the reader 102b.
The ranging performed by the readers 202a-202d may be used to identify intent information for the user of the credential device 204 to detect an intent trigger. This may be accomplished by providing the ranging data to a controller 206, for example, or other centralized computing system. In another example, there may not be a controller 206 and the readers 202a-202d may communicate directly with one another. In this example, one or more of the readers 202a-202d may receive the intent information and identify intent triggers for the user of the credential device 204.
To conserve power, it may be advantageous to terminate ranging for readers 204a-204d for which intent information has indicated that the user of the credential device 204 is unlikely to approach. For example, a path 208 of the user may be identified using ranging by the readers 202a-202d. As illustrated in
At step 306, ranging is performed by the readers using the shared secret. This may be performed by each reader using UWB messages marked with the shared secret, for example. By using multiple readers to range the credential device, intent information for a user of the credential device may be better determined. For example, distance to each reader, direction of travel, speed of travel, and other intent information may be identified for a user of the credential device to identify if the user is approaching, or has arrived at, any facility controlled by a respective one of the readers.
At step 308, access is coordinated to a secured area or other resource protected by the respective facilities controlled by the readers. For example, upon a user of the credential device coming within a certain range of a door controlled by a respective reader, a lock for the door may be actuated to provide the user access through the door. In some examples, a timeout may be implemented such that if a user has not come within range of the controlled facility, or the user intent indicates the user is moving away from the controlled facility, the credential and shared secret may be cleared from a cache of the respective reader.
At step 406, ranging can be terminated for respective readers based on the identified intent information of the user. For example, if the user turns and heads toward one or more of the readers, while heading away from one or more of the readers, the readers for which the user is heading away may have ranging terminated. In this example, the cached secret and cached identifier can be removed from the readers that are terminating ranging. This may save on power consumption for readers for which the user is unlikely to approach. At step 408, the remainder of the readers coordinate access to the secured area or other resources that may be accessed by the user.
At step 504, the system may determine that a reader within range to perform ranging for the credential device is a low-use reader. Thus, the secret may be shared by the initial reader with the low-use reader to hand off ranging duties. This may be communicated through a system controller or may be directly communicated to the low-use reader. In another example, the other reader may not be a low-use reader, but the initial reader is experiencing particularly heavy traffic and may offload ranging duties to another reader that is not currently experiencing the same heavy traffic. This may be determined by the reader itself, by a system controller, or in any other way. The initial reader may also share the credential or other information (such as a PACS ID) with the low-use reader.
At step 506, the low-use reader is used to perform ranging using the shared secret for the credential device. The ranging may be utilized to identify an intent of a user of the credential device. For example, the low-use reader may perform ranging to identify a direction, speed, or other property of movement for the user. At step 508, access to one or more controlled areas or other resources may be coordinated based on the intent identified by the ranging performed by the low-use reader. For example, the ranging performed by the low-use reader may identify that a user is within a threshold range of a facility controlled by the initial reader, and the facility may be controlled to provide the user access to the respective controlled area or resource. This way, load balancing can be performed for systems in which there are several readers capable of performing ranging for a common credential device such as, for example, turnstile systems.
In some embodiments, the machine 600 can operate as a standalone device or can be connected (e.g., networked) to other machines. In a networked deployment, the machine 600 can operate in the capacity of a server machine, a client machine, or both in server-client network environments. In some examples, the machine 600 can act as a peer machine in peer-to-peer (P2P) (or other distributed) network environment. The machine 600 can be a personal computer (PC), a tablet PC, a set-top box (STB), a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, a web appliance, a network router, switch or bridge, or any machine capable of executing instructions (sequential or otherwise) that specify actions to be taken by that machine. Further, while only a single machine is illustrated, the term “machine” shall also be taken to include any collection of machines that individually or jointly execute a set (or multiple sets) of instructions to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, such as cloud computing, software as a service (SaaS), other computer cluster configurations.
The machine (e.g., computer system) 600 can include a hardware processor 602 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU), a hardware processor core, or any combination thereof), a main memory 604, a static memory (e.g., memory or storage for firmware, microcode, a basic-input-output (BIOS), unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI), etc.) 606, and mass storage 608 (e.g., hard drives, tape drives, flash storage, or other block devices) some or all of which can communicate with each other via an interlink (e.g., bus) 630. The machine 600 can further include a display unit 610, an alphanumeric input device 612 (e.g., a keyboard), and a user interface (UI) navigation device 614 (e.g., a mouse). In some examples, the display unit 610, input device 612 and UI navigation device 614 can be a touch screen display. The machine 600 can additionally include a storage device (e.g., drive unit) 608, a signal generation device 618 (e.g., a speaker), a network interface device 620, and one or more sensors 616, such as a global positioning system (GPS) sensor, compass, accelerometer, or other sensor. The machine 600 can include an output controller 628, such as a serial (e.g., universal serial bus (USB), parallel, or other wired or wireless (e.g., infrared (IR), near field communication (NFC), etc.) connection to communicate or control one or more peripheral devices (e.g., a printer, card reader, etc.).
Registers of the processor 602, the main memory 604, the static memory 606, or the mass storage 608 can be, or include, a machine readable medium 622 on which is stored one or more sets of data structures or instructions 624 (e.g., software) embodying or utilized by any one or more of the techniques or functions described herein. The instructions 624 can also reside, completely or at least partially, within any of registers of the processor 602, the main memory 604, the static memory 606, or the mass storage 608 during execution thereof by the machine 600. In some examples, one or any combination of the hardware processor 602, the main memory 604, the static memory 606, or the mass storage 608 can constitute the machine readable media 622. While the machine readable medium 622 is illustrated as a single medium, the term “machine readable medium” can include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, and/or associated caches and servers) configured to store the one or more instructions 624.
The term “machine readable medium” can include any medium that is capable of storing, encoding, or carrying instructions for execution by the machine 600 and that cause the machine 600 to perform any one or more of the techniques of the present disclosure, or that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying data structures used by or associated with such instructions. Non-limiting machine readable medium examples can include solid-state memories, optical media, magnetic media, and signals (e.g., radio frequency signals, other photon based signals, sound signals, etc.). In some examples, a non-transitory machine readable medium comprises a machine readable medium with a plurality of particles having invariant (e.g., rest) mass, and thus are compositions of matter. Accordingly, non-transitory machine-readable media are machine readable media that do not include transitory propagating signals. Specific examples of non-transitory machine readable media can include: non-volatile memory, such as semiconductor memory devices (e.g., Electrically Programmable Read-Only Memory (EPROM), Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM)) and flash memory devices; magnetic disks, such as internal hard disks and removable disks; magneto-optical disks; and CD-ROM and DVD-ROM disks.
In some examples, information stored or otherwise provided on the machine readable medium 622 can be representative of the instructions 624, such as instructions 624 themselves or a format from which the instructions 624 can be derived. This format from which the instructions 624 can be derived can include source code, encoded instructions (e.g., in compressed or encrypted form), packaged instructions (e.g., split into multiple packages), or the like. The information representative of the instructions 624 in the machine readable medium 622 can be processed by processing circuitry into the instructions to implement any of the operations discussed herein. For example, deriving the instructions 624 from the information (e.g., processing by the processing circuitry) can include: compiling (e.g., from source code, object code, etc.), interpreting, loading, organizing (e.g., dynamically or statically linking), encoding, decoding, encrypting, unencrypting, packaging, unpackaging, or otherwise manipulating the information into the instructions 624.
In some examples, the derivation of the instructions 624 can include assembly, compilation, or interpretation of the information (e.g., by the processing circuitry) to create the instructions 624 from some intermediate or preprocessed format provided by the machine readable medium 622. The information, when provided in multiple parts, can be combined, unpacked, and modified to create the instructions 624. For example, the information can be in multiple compressed source code packages (or object code, or binary executable code, etc.) on one or several remote servers. The source code packages can be encrypted when in transit over a network and decrypted, uncompressed, assembled (e.g., linked) if necessary, and compiled or interpreted (e.g., into a library, stand-alone executable etc.) at a local machine, and executed by the local machine.
The instructions 624 can be further transmitted or received over a communications network 626 using a transmission medium via the network interface device 620 utilizing any one of a number of transfer protocols (e.g., frame relay, internet protocol (IP), transmission control protocol (TCP), user datagram protocol (UDP), hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), etc.). Example communication networks can include a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), a packet data network (e.g., the Internet), mobile telephone networks (e.g., cellular networks), Plain Old Telephone (POTS) networks, and wireless data networks (e.g., Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 family of standards known as Wi-Fi®, IEEE 802.16 family of standards known as WiMax®), IEEE 802.15.4 family of standards, peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, among others. In some examples, the network interface device 620 can include one or more physical jacks (e.g., Ethernet, coaxial, or phone jacks) or one or more antennas to connect to the communications network 626. In some examples, the network interface device 620 can include a plurality of antennas to wirelessly communicate using at least one of single-input multiple-output (SIMO), multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), or multiple-input single-output (MISO) techniques. The term “transmission medium” shall be taken to include any intangible medium that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying instructions for execution by the machine 600, and includes digital or analog communications signals or other intangible medium to facilitate communication of such software. A transmission medium is a machine readable medium.
The above description includes references to the accompanying drawings, which form a part of the detailed description. The drawings show, by way of illustration, specific embodiments in which the invention can be practiced. These embodiments are also referred to herein as “examples.” Such examples can include elements in addition to those shown or described. However, the present inventors also contemplate examples in which only those elements shown or described are provided. Moreover, the present inventors also contemplate examples using any combination or permutation of those elements shown or described (or one or more aspects thereof), either with respect to a particular example (or one or more aspects thereof), or with respect to other examples (or one or more aspects thereof) shown or described herein.
In this document, the terms “a” or “an” are used, as is common in patent documents, to include one or more than one, independent of any other instances or usages of “at least one” or “one or more.” In this document, the term “or” is used to refer to a nonexclusive or, such that “A or B” includes “A but not B,” “B but not A,” and “A and B,” unless otherwise indicated. In this document, the terms “including” and “in which” are used as the plain-English equivalents of the respective terms “comprising” and “wherein.” Also, in the following claims, the terms “including” and “comprising” are open-ended, that is, a system, device, article, composition, formulation, or process that includes elements in addition to those listed after such a term in a claim are still deemed to fall within the scope of that claim. Moreover, in the following claims, the terms “first,” “second,” and “third,” etc. are used merely as labels, and are not intended to impose numerical requirements on their objects.
The above description is intended to be illustrative, and not restrictive. For example, the above-described examples (or one or more aspects thereof) may be used in combination with each other. Other embodiments can be used, such as by one of ordinary skill in the art upon reviewing the above description. The Abstract is provided to allow the reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. Also, in the above Detailed Description, various features may be grouped together to streamline the disclosure. This should not be interpreted as intending that an unclaimed disclosed feature is essential to any claim. Rather, inventive subject matter may lie in less than all features of a particular disclosed embodiment. Thus, the following claims are hereby incorporated into the Detailed Description as examples or embodiments, with each claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment, and it is contemplated that such embodiments can be combined with each other in various combinations or permutations. The scope of the invention should be determined with reference to the appended claims, along with the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62823341 | Mar 2019 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 17593336 | Sep 2021 | US |
| Child | 18399309 | US |
