Visual RFID Tags and Interactive Visual RFID Networks
RFID driven display system components such as wireless displays (visual RFID tags) and multi-antenna wireless RFID readers that monitor/control the RFID driven displays in order to provide visual real-time information to display viewers and/or provide useful information to a central processing station that monitors the status of and/or updates the RFID driven displays, networks including one or more of the components, and methods for using the RFID driven display system components to monitor assets in applications such as inventory control and manufacturing.
1 . A retail network comprising:
a central control station;
one or more edge readers, each edge reader further comprising an RFID tag reader including an antenna, a wireless communications device, a microcontroller; and a power source;
at least one base station reader the base station reader further comprising an RFID tag reader having an antenna, a first wireless communications device for communicating wirelessly with the one or more edge controllers and a second communications device; and
a plurality of items which are individually tagged with RFID tag wherein at least a portion of the RFID tagged items lie outside of the read range of the base station RFID tag reader but within the read range of one or more edge reader RFID tag reader.
2 . The retail network of claim 1 wherein the base station first wireless communications device and the edge reader wireless communications devices are Zigbee communications devices.
3 . The retail network of claim 1 wherein the base station second communications device is a wireless communications device.
4 . The retail network of claim 1 further including a plurality of visual displays, each visual display including a display, a communications module and a display microcontroller wherein the communication module of each visible display receives display instructions from the central control system.
5 . The retail network of claim 1 wherein the base station reader has an RFID tag interrogation range and an RFID tag read range wherein the RIFD tag interrogation range is greater that the RFID tag read range.
6 . The network of claim 4 wherein the visual display includes an RFID tag.
7 . The network of claim 1 wherein the one or more edge readers read RFID tag information emitted from one or more item RFID tags after they are interrogated by the base station reader and the edge reader communications module forwards information received from the one or more interrogated item RFID tags wirelessly to the base station first wireless communications device.
8 . The network of claim 1 wherein the base station second communications devices is a wireless communications device that sends RFID tag information read by the base station RFID tag reader and the one or more edge reader RFID tag readers wirelessly to the central control station directly or through a wireless hub.
9 . The network of claim 4 wherein the visual displays are battery powered.
10 . The network of claim 1 wherein each the edge reader RFID reader has a low transmit power and high access sensitivity.
11 . The network of claim 1 including a return communications network that is associated with the central control unit for sending visible display instructions to one or more of the visible displays.
12 . The network of claim 1 wherein the central control station is connected to the base station reader by hardwire or wirelessly.
13 . The network of claim 4 wherein the visible display is a persistent display.
14 . The network of claim 1 wherein each edge controller can communicate wirelessly with an adjacent edge controller or with the base station reader.
15 . The network of claim 1 wherein information about an interrogated RFID tag can be read by a first edge reader RFID reader and that information relayed to at least a second edge reader after which the information is transmitted to the base station reader.