Radio frequency identification tags adapted for localization and state indication

1. An apparatus, comprising:

a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag with at least one light emitting diode (LED) that is controlled by a logic in the RFID tag and powered by a power harvesting circuit in the RFID tag;

wherein said RFID tag powers said LED when an operating voltage is reached, which discharges its storage capacitor and wherein when a minimum operating voltage is reached, the LED is turned off, at which point the storage capacitor recharges and therefore an LED flashing rate is proportional to an input power, but brightness of any single flash is constant;

wherein said RFID tag is interrogated by an RFID reader and reporting its unique identification number by RF backscatter and/or controlling an illumination state of said at least one LED;

wherein said illumination is controlled either by an explicit LED-control command from said RFID reader, or locally by said RFID tag;

wherein said LED is configured to provide visual feedback to a human operator, or to a video camera/machine vision system and wherein said vision system is mounted on a robot for localization or in a fixed configuration;

wherein a camera light collection duty cycle is set high by setting a shutter time to be as close as possible to camera frame rate to enable observation of said at least one LED included with said RFID tag by said camera.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein said RFID tag enables a pair of stereo cameras to be used to automatically localize the 3D location of said at least one LED by using a blink detection algorithm that locates the LED in both camera views, and stereo triangulation locates the LED.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein said blink detection uses temporal filtering so an image series can be low-pass-filtered to extract a steady component of a scene, and then subtracts said low-pass-filtered image from each new frame to yield a high pass filtered image stream to enable pixels of interest to be identified by applying an energy threshold to said temporally filtered image stream.

4. A method, comprising:

including at least one light emitting diode (LED) with a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag that is controlled by a logic in the RFID tag and powered by a power harvesting circuit in the RFID tag;

powering by said RFID tag said LED when a sufficient operating voltage is reached, which discharges its storage capacitor and wherein when a minimum operating voltage is reached, the LED is turned off, at which point the storage capacitor recharges and therefore an LED flashing rate is proportional to an input power, but brightness of any single flash is constant; controlling said illumination by either an explicit LED-control command from said RFID reader, or locally by said RFID tag;

configuring said LED to provide visual feedback to a human operator, or to a video camera/machine vision system and wherein said vision system is mounted on a robot for localization or in a fixed configuration; and

setting a camera light collection duty cycle high by setting a shutter time to be as close as possible to camera frame rate to enable observation of said at least one LED included with said RFID tag by said camera;

wherein said RFID tag is interrogated by an RFID reader and reporting its unique identification number by RF backscatter and/or controlling an illumination state of said at least one LED.

5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising adapting said RFID tag to enable a pair of stereo cameras to be used to automatically localize the 3D location of said at least one LED by using a blink detection algorithm that locates the LED in both camera views, and stereo triangulation locates the LED.

6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising using by said blink detection temporal filtering so an image series can be low-pass-filtered to extract a steady component of a scene, and then subtracts said low-pass-filtered image from each new frame to yield a high pass filtered image stream to enable pixels of interest to be identified by applying an energy threshold to said temporally filtered image stream.

7. A radio frequency identification (RFID) tag, comprising:

at least one light emitting diode (LED) that is controlled by a logic in the RFID tag and powered by a power harvesting circuit in the RFID tag, wherein said RFID tag is capable of being interrogated by an RFID reader and reporting its unique identification number by RF backscatter and/or controlling an illumination state of said at least one LED;

wherein said RFID tag powers said LED when a sufficient operating voltage is reached, which discharges its storage capacitor and wherein when a minimum operating voltage is reached, the LED is turned off, at which point the storage capacitor recharges and therefore LED flashing rate is proportional to input power, but brightness of any single flash is constant;

wherein said RFID tag is interrogated by an RFID reader and reporting its unique identification number by RF backscatter and/or controlling an illumination state of said at least one LED;

wherein a camera light collection duty cycle is set high by setting a shutter time to be as close as possible to camera frame rate to enable observation of said at least one LED included with said RFID tag by said camera;

wherein said illumination is controlled either by an explicit LED-control command from said RFID reader, or locally by said RFID tag;

wherein said LED is configured to provide visual feedback to a human operator, or to a video camera/machine vision system and wherein said vision system is capable of being mounted on a robot for localization or in a fixed configuration.