Granted Patent B2

US 9,734,682 · App. 14/961,509 · Granted Aug 15, 2017

Inventors: David R. Miller (Morgan, UT); Arlow Farrell (Murfreesboro, TN)

G08B13/2417G06K7/0008G06Q10/087H04B5/0062

Abstract

Claims (42)

1. A method comprising:

discovering one or more available signals to obtain discovered signals;

registering the one or more discovered signals;

identifying one or more target beacon signals from the one or more registered signals to obtain one or more identified beacon signals;

scanning the one or more identified beacon signals to obtain beacon information;

sorting the one or more scanned signals by signal strength to determine an at least one highest strength signal;

parsing the beacon information from the at least one highest strength signal;

generating a tag signal comprising the parsed beacon information; and

determining a location of an asset by comparing the tag signal to stored location information, wherein the stored location information describes a beacon layout.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying the one or more target beacon signals comprises ignoring a non-beacon signal from the one or more registered signals.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the parsed beacon information comprises a major identifier and a minor identifier parsed from the at least one highest strength signal.

4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising storing the major identifier and the minor identifier to a tag local memory device.

5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising resetting at least a portion of the tag local memory to facilitate storing a new major identifier and a new minor identifier to the tag local memory device.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tag signal comprises the parsed beacon information ordered by signal strength.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tag signal comprises signal strength information associated with the parsed beacon information.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein discovering the one or more available signals occurs periodically at a rate between 500 milliseconds and 2 seconds.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the tag signal and the one or more target beacon signals comprises a personal area network signal.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

sending the tag signal to a local hub;

receiving the tag signal at the local hub;

formatting the tag signal at the local hub;

transmitting the formatted tag signal to a central location;

receiving the formatted tag signal at the central location; and

analyzing the tag signal to identify the asset and determine a power level of at least one of a beacon and a tag associated with the asset.

11. An asset tag device comprising:

a housing;

a battery disposed within the housing;

a circuit board disposed within the housing and in electrical communication with the battery, wherein the circuit board comprises:

a local memory;

a transceiver to:

detect local signals to obtain detected local signals; and

transmit a response packet;

a processor to:

identify the detected local signals;

determine whether the detected local signals comprise at least one beacon signal;

store, to the local memory, the at least one beacon signal;

sort, in the local memory, the stored at least one beacon signal by proximity to the asset tag device;

parse the sorted at least one beacon signal; and

append tag information to the parsed at least one beacon signal to generate the response packet.

12. The asset tag device of claim 11 , wherein the processor is further to identify and extract a major identifier and minor identifier from the sorted at least one beacon signal.

13. The asset tag device of claim 11 , wherein the tag information comprises battery power level information.

14. The asset tag device of claim 11 , wherein the transceiver is to detect and transmit a personal area network signal.

Assignments (10)

Continuity (3)