1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information processing using received signals in a wireless signal receiver, which receives signals transmitted from tags (particularly, RFID tags) and an information providing technology at least using received signals or a distance measurement (estimation) technology using received signals, and more particularly to an information providing system and method that provides suitable information according to the position of a person who is located in an arbitrary place such as a station premise, a street or shopping center, a department store, an art museum, or a theme park.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, ubiquitous network environments in which it is possible to access a network anywhere at any time have been developed to realize ubiquitous information society. Especially, the spread of portable information devices using a short-distance wireless technology or a mobile communication network for moving bodies is remarkable. One example of a conventional technology for such a portable information device providing information suitable for a place, where a person who holds the portable information device is located, to the person is described in Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 2004-112482 (Reference 1). In this technology, a place where a person who holds a wireless LAN terminal such as a PC or PDA is located is specified from the intensity of wireless LAN signals propagated between the wireless LAN terminal and a plurality of base stations such as wireless LAN access points and information optimal for the specified place is provided to the person through the terminal. Another example of this technology is a system which measures the distance between a terminal and base stations based on the length of propagation time of a laser pulse from each base station, specifies a place where a person who holds the terminal is located, and provides information optimal for the place to the user through the terminal.
Another technology is described, for example, in Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 2002-205888 (Reference 2). In this technology, an inexpensive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag is installed at every position. An ID can be assigned to each RFID tag to uniquely identify each position (or place). Using a passive RFID tag, which requires no power, is cost-efficient. An RFID reader in a system using this technology reads an ID of an RFID tag when a person who holds the reader is near a specific place and specifies the place from the read ID.
However, in the conventional technology described in the Reference 1, it is necessary that a wireless LAN base station be installed at every position since the distance is measured based on the propagation time or intensity of radio signals. This significantly increases the installation or operation costs of base stations and thus this conventional technology is impractical.
Since the readable range varies depending on the frequency band of radio waves used for communication with RFID tags, the conventional technology described in the Reference 2 has the following two problems. For example, when RFID tags with a relatively short readable range of about 1 meter are used, RFID tags must be installed at desired positions at intervals of 1 meter. Thus, this conventional technology also requires high costs to install RFID tags. Meanwhile, when RFID tags with a relatively large readable range of about 10 meters are used, the reader reads an ID from an RFID tag at a position 10 meters away from the RFID tag and therefore it can perform distance measurement at intervals of only 10 meters. Thus, it is difficult for this conventional technology to provide optimal information within a shorter range (i.e., more accurately).
Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and it is an object of the present invention to realize desired information processing using RFID tags and a terminal used by a user.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a distance measurement system and method for estimating the distance to an RFID tag and to provide desired information.
In accordance with the present invention, the above and other objects can be accomplished by information processing control based on the number of signals an information terminal has received (or the number of times it has received a signal) in a specific period. In the following description, the number of times the information terminal has received a signal is also referred to as a reception count. The information processing includes measuring the positional relationship of the information terminal with an RFID tag based on a reception count of a signal from the RFID tag. This positional relationship includes the distance between the RFID tag and the information terminal and may be expressed not only by numerical values in meters but also by words indicating relative distances such as nearer. The present invention also includes specifying and outputting content based on the reception count.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information providing system for providing information to a user who holds an information terminal, wherein a number of RFID tags are disposed at arbitrary positions in an arbitrary area, the information providing system including an RFID reader that receives an ID from an RFID tag as a response to an RFID reading signal that is generated by the information terminal a predetermined number of times in a specific time interval; a counter for counting, in each specific time interval, the number of IDs that were able to be received from each RFID tag in the specific time interval; a distance specifier for specifying a distance to an RFID tag as an object based on results of counting; a content acquirer for acquiring content to be displayed based on the specified distance; and a display for displaying the acquired content.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information providing system for providing information to a user who holds an information terminal, wherein a number of RFID tags are disposed at arbitrary positions in an arbitrary area, the information providing system including an RFID reader that receives an ID from an RFID tag as a response to an RFID reading signal that is generated by the information terminal a predetermined number of times in a specific time interval; a counter for counting, in each specific time interval, the number of IDs that were able to be received from each RFID tag in the specific time interval; a behavioral state determiner for retaining, as a log, a counting result of each specific time interval while obtaining the difference between counting results of current and immediately previous time intervals to determine a behavioral state of a user; a distance specifier for specifying a distance to an RFID tag as an object based on counting results; a content acquirer for acquiring content to be displayed based on the specified distance and the behavioral state of the user; and a display for displaying the acquired content.
In accordance with the present invention, information optimal for a place where a user is located can be provided to the user by specifying the place in a shorter range (i.e., more accurately).
The above and other objects, features and other advantages of the present invention will be more clearly understood from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
Embodiments of the present invention applied to an information provision system and method will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings.
The information provision system according to the present invention shown in
As described below, in the embodiments of the present invention, information such as position information and content information is all stored in the RFID reader-equipped information terminal 100. However, the information provision system according to the present invention may also be constructed to allow the information terminal 100 to acquire such information by accessing databases, which are under centralized management of a center server (not shown), through a network. When there are a very large number of RFID reader-equipped information terminals 100, this construction can remove the time required to update information such as content information in all information terminals one by one, simply by updating content information in the center server. This makes it possible to provide information terminals at low cost.
As shown in
A Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag used in the embodiments of the present invention is a so-called passive RFID tag and includes an IC chip 201 and an antenna 202. The IC chip 201 includes the transmission unit 203 for transmitting an ID of the RFID tag, the reception unit 204 for receiving radio waves from the RFID reader-equipped information terminal 100, the storage 205 for storing an unique ID, and the power rectifier 206 for converting electromagnetic energy received through the antenna 202 into a DC power voltage. Of course, an active RFID tag may also be used in the present invention. However, taking into consideration the maintenance time such as battery replacement, it is preferable to use a passive RFID tag.
The counting file 160 is created by counting the number of times the RFID reader-equipped information terminal 100 was able to read an ID with which each of a plurality of RFID tags 200 has responded to a radio wave for reading an ID 100 times per second, the radio wave being transmitted from the terminal 100. As shown in
The distance definition DB 120 stores data used to define the distance between the RFID reader 108 and the RFID tag 200. As shown in
The distance specifying DB 130 defines the positional relationship between the number of times an ID from each RFID tag was able to be read and the object. As shown in
The distance determination file 170 is created with reference to the counting file 160 and the distance specifying DB 130 in association with each other. Specifically, as shown in
As shown in
As shown in
The log file 165 stores contents of the counting file 160 as a log. Specifically, as shown in
The behavioral state DB 180 associates, for each ID 161, a value obtained by subtracting the RFID read count 167 stored in the log file 165 from the RFID read count 162 stored in the counting file 160 with a behavioral state and defines the associations between RFID read count changes 181, which indicate changes in the number of times the ID from the RFID tag was able to be read, and behavioral states 182. Specifically, as shown in
The behavioral state file 185 specifies a behavioral state of a person who holds the RFID reader-equipped information terminal 100 for each RFID tag 200 and is updated constantly (specifically, every second). Specifically, the behavioral state file 185 associates IDs 186 with behavioral states 187 as shown in
As shown in
As shown in
(1) When the system according to the embodiment of the present invention is activated, for example, as a user of the RFID reader-equipped information terminal 100 manipulates the terminal 100 to power it on, the RFID reader 108 in the RFID reader-equipped information terminal 100 first performs a process for reading an ID from an RFID tag 200 by generating a wireless signal as a reading signal and then receiving a response signal from the RFID tag 200. For this process, conventional systems using barcodes require that the user read barcodes one by one while recognizing where the barcodes have been attached. On the other hand, the system using RFID tags can perform the reading process without requiring that the user recognize where the RFID tags are located since RFID tags 200 automatically return response waves when they have received a radio wave generated by the RFID reader within a certain area. Since RFID tags 200 located in a communication range transmit their IDs as responses to a wireless signal generated by the RFID reader 108, the RFID reader 108 performs the process for reading IDs from the RFID tags 200 by receiving the responses from the RFID tags 200, for example, 100 times in a second (step F1, S003).
(2) Then, the RFID reader-equipped information terminal 100 specifies the distance between the RFID reader 108 and the RFID tags 200 based on results of the reading of IDs from the RFID tags 200 at step F1. This process is based on a principle that the number of times an ID from an RFID tag 200 was able to be read decreases in proportion to the distance to the RFID tag 200, provided that the number of times a wireless signal for RFID reading is generated per unit time is constant. Accordingly, in this process, the distance to the RFID tag 200 can be very easily measured using only the number of times an ID from the RFID was able to be read per unit time (step F2).
(3) Then, the RFID reader-equipped information terminal 100 performs an information display process to display content corresponding to the distance information specified at step F2 on the display 107 of the terminal 100. The procedure of steps F1 to F3 is repeated and the content displayed on the display is updated constantly, for example, until an ending process is performed to power off the RFID reader-equipped information terminal. Of course, the function of the interface 103 of the RFID reader-equipped information terminal 100 may be enhanced to add a process for suspending the update of the content, thereby allowing the user to carefully view the information. In the embodiment of the present invention, the update time interval, which is set to one second in the above example, may be freely changed to update the information at times suitable for the personality of a person (for example, a person who moves quickly or a person who moves slowly) or suitable for the place (for example, an art museum or a station) (steps F3, F4).
(1) First, the RFID reader 108 of the RFID reader-equipped information terminal 100 transmits a transmission signal “01” and starts measuring a reading time during which RFID reading has been performed to measure a counting time during which RFID read counting has been performed (steps S001 and S002). Starting measuring the reading time may be synchronized with the transmission signal “01”.
(2) The transmission signal 01 transmitted at step S001 is propagated through the air and, upon receiving the transmission signal 01, each of a plurality of RFID tags 200 in a communication range returns an ID stored in the storage 205 as a response signal 10 to the RFID reader-equipped information terminal 100. This process is performed in such a manner that the RFID reader 108 automatically detects RFID tags 200 located in a reading area without requiring the person to be conscious of where RFID tags 200 are located (S003).
(3) Then, the RFID reader 108 receives the response signals transmitted from the RFID tags 200. Since RFID tags 200 carry their IDs through wireless signals, this process makes it possible to automatically identify which IDs have been read without requiring the person to be conscious of the same. Here, some RFID tags 200 present in the reading area of the RFID reader-equipped information terminal 100 may not respond to the transmission signal and thus not return the response signals 10. This is because, as the distance between the RFID reader 108 and an RFID tag 200 increases, the electromagnetic energy of a response signal which is propagated from the RFID tag 200 through the air decreases and thus the response ratio of the RFID tag 200 decreases as described above with reference to
(4) Then, using IDs of response signals received from the RFID tags 200, the RFID reader 108 determines and records the read IDs 161 and the RFID read counts 162 in the format of the counting file 160 shown in
(5) It is then determined whether or not the measuring time has elapsed one second. If the measuring time has elapsed one second, the procedure is terminated. Otherwise, the procedure returns to step S003 to repeat the process for determining the RFID read count 162 and the ID 161 read based on the transmission signals 01 continually transmitted and to repeat updating the counting file 160 (S005).
The procedure until the counting file 160 is updated is automatically performed by the RFID reader 108 without requiring a manual operation of the person. Although the RFID read counting process to create the counting file 160 is performed using wireless information communication in the above method in the embodiment of the present invention, the present invention is not limited to the above method.
(1) First, the contents of the counting file 160 created in the procedure described above with reference to
(2) Then, the IDs 161 of the counting file 160 and the positional relationships 172 with objects are used to create the distance determination file 170 as shown in
(1) First, content 143 to be displayed for each ID is obtained with reference to the content DB 140 shown in
(2) Then, the obtained content 143 is displayed on the display 107. Obtained content items 143 are displayed on the screen, for example, from the top to the bottom in the order in which they were read. Older content is displayed on the screen at an upper position. Older content may be displayed on the screen at an upper position in a display method in which content items displayed on the screen are updated one after another with a new content item so that they can be easily viewed by persons. Other display methods may also be used. The displayed area ratio of the content to be displayed on the screen is changed according to the corresponding RFID read count 162. This is based on the assumption that, when the RFID read count is higher, the person is located nearer to the object and shows more interest in it. In order to provide content attracting interest in an easily readable (or understandable) manner, the displayed area ratio of the content to be displayed on the screen is increased to increase the rate at which the content reaches eyes of the person, whereby the person views and reads the content most easily among content displayed on the screen. Specifically, the relationship between RFID read counts 151 and display magnifications 152 is defined as shown in
In the above example, suitable information is provided based only on position information of a person who uses the RFID reader-equipped terminal. 100. In the following, we describe a method according to a second embodiment of the present invention in which more suitable information is provided based not only on the position information but also on a behavioral state of the person.
(1) First, the RFID reading process of step F1 and S003 and the distance specifying process of step F2 are performed sequentially. A description of these processes is omitted since the processes are similar to those described above with reference to
(2) The following is a description of the process of the added step F5. This process detects a change (increase or decrease) in the read count and determines a behavioral state of the person based on the fact that an increase in the read count indicates that the person is moving closer to the object and a decrease in the read count indicates that the person is moving away from the object. This process is advantageous in that the behavioral state of the person can be easily determined by processing the information of the distance specifying file 170 obtained in the process of step F2 without acquiring new information required to determine the behavioral state of the person.
The following is a detailed description of the process of the added step F5.
First, an RFID read count change 181 is calculated by subtracting an RFID read count of one second ago from a current RFID read count for each ID 161 of the counting file 160 shown in
(3) The process of step F3 is performed in the following manner. The process of step F3 makes a change to the process of step S008 described above in the procedure shown in
(1) In the changed content acquisition process of step S008, content corresponding to the behavioral state is obtained with reference not only to the counting file 160 but also to the behavioral state file although content is obtained with reference only to the counting file 160 in the example of
(2) Then, the information display process of step S009 is performed based on the obtained content 149. A description of this process is omitted since the process is similar to that described above with reference to
The following is a description of an example method according to a third embodiment of the present invention in which content associating two or more information is provided when IDs have been read from two or more RFID tags 200.
All processes of the method according to the third embodiment are basically similar to those of the first embodiment described with reference to
For example, when a person is located in an art museum near both art works X and Y with an RFID tag attached to each of the art works X and Y, content indicating the difference between the art works X and Y is provided, whereas, when the person is located distant from both the art works X and Y, content attracting common interest in the art works X and Y is provided. That is, in the third embodiment, content is selected based on the positional relationship of the person with the plurality of RFID tags, thereby making it possible to provide information suitable for the person.
The following is a description of a detailed procedure according to the third embodiment. In the following description of the procedure, reading of a plurality of RFID tags is limited to reading of two RFID tags for ease of explanation. A description of a procedure when three or more RFID tags have been read is not necessary because the procedure when three or more RFID tags have been read is performed in the same manner as when two RFID tags have been read and the procedure when two RFID tags have been read can be easily extended to the procedure when three or more RFID tags have been read.
First, the same processes as those of steps F1 and F2 of the first embodiment described above with reference to
This embodiment is not limited to displaying a plurality of contents. For example, when read (or reception) counts of IDs of RFID tags are 30, 50, and 70, content corresponding to one of the IDs with the largest reception count may be displayed.
On the other hand, even when the reception count of an RFID tag is zero, content of the RFID tag at a distance greater than the maximum readable distance may be displayed. To prevent this problem, a certain threshold may be set for the reception count.
It is not necessary to wait until the reception period of time has elapsed. For example, when it is determined that RFID reception was able to be performed more than a predetermined number of times (for example, 70 times), the receiving process may be terminated to output content at that time, thereby increasing the processing speed.
Each process in each of the above embodiments of the present invention may be implemented by a program, which may be executed by a CPU included in a computer. Each program may be provided as being stored in a recording medium such as FD, CD-ROM, and DVD or may be provided in the form of digital information through a network.
The present embodiments can be applied to various scenes in which information is provided in various places. Specifically, the present embodiments can be applied to, for example, a technology for providing information of products located near a person to the person in a supermarket or a technology for providing information substituting for a direction board to direct persons in public places. The present invention can also be applied to analysis of movement paths of persons to utilize the movement paths in marketing.
The following is an embodiment in which the technology of the present invention is applied to marketing using movement paths.
This embodiment is applied to a system which is provided with a display including a reader and which changes display according to the distance to a person who holds a tag when the person approaches the reader. This system can perform display according to the distance between the person having a tag and the display or to changes in the distance. This system can be applied to display of behavior instructions to persons who are escaping in an emergency situation and can also be used as advertising media. When the system is used as advertising media, information of a tag which is moving away may not be displayed or may also be displayed depending on design specifications. In this case, content attracting interest of a person who is moving away may be displayed and an advertisement for pulling the person back may be displayed.
It is also possible to calculate an acceleration of the RFID reader-equipped information terminal 100 when it is approaching or moving away. The acceleration can be calculated by arranging reception counts of unit times in chronological order and calculating the rate of change of the reception count per unit time. This makes it possible to determine even movement states of the user such as whether or not the user is approaching in a hurry.
The movement speed of the RFID reader-equipped information terminal 100 can also be calculated by calculating the change of the reception count per unit time.
The technologies of the present embodiments are also useful in management of goods in a facility or in confirmation of the whereabouts of a person.
In conventional technologies for management of goods or whereabouts of persons, tags are disposed at specific positions inside or outside a building to specify the positions. Information of the positions of the tags is stored in a reader. A reader which requires position information detects tags, the positions of which are already known to the reader, when it has come to a position at which it can detect radio waves from the tags and guesses its own position by checking the detected positions of the tags with reference to the stored information. Although the reader is carried by a user in the present embodiments, a system in which a tag is carried by a user can also be implemented. The following is an example of this system.
The distance estimation function according to the present embodiments makes it possible to locate a person buried in a disaster such as an earthquake. This can be accomplished, for example, by letting persons carry an RFID tag or attach an RFID tag to their clothes and measuring the distance between the RFID tag and the RFID reader-equipped information terminal 100. When a disaster occurs in the case where tags are arranged in a building, the disaster may move the tags, making their arrangement information meaningless. Thus, the conventional technologies are ineffective in such a scene. However, the technologies of the present embodiments are effective in such a scene because it is possible to estimate the position from one tag.
Although the preferred embodiments of the present invention have been disclosed for illustrative purposes, those skilled in the art will appreciate that various modifications, additions and substitutions are possible, without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention as disclosed in the accompanying claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2006-009976 | Jan 2006 | JP | national |