SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR LOCATING TAGS WITHIN A SPACE

摘要

Systems (100) and methods (600) for determining a location of an object within space. The methods comprise: generating Inertial Reference Measurement Data (“IRMD”); reading RFID inventory tags by an RFID reader; processing IRMD to determine an RFID reader orientation and position estimates at a time of each RFID inventory tag read; defining cones associated with each RFID inventory tag; mapping the cones to a model; analyzing the model to identify a set of cones which overlap each other and are associated with reads for a respective RFID inventory tag; and deriving a position estimate for the respective inventory tag based on intersecting portions of the cones in the set of cones. Each cone has: a vertex which is the RFID reader position estimate at a respective time; and an angle which is in inverse proportion to a signal strength of a signal received from a respective RFID inventory tag.

主权项

1. A method for determining a location of an object within a space, comprising:
generating inertial reference measurement data by an Attitude and Heading Reference (“AHR”) device that is useful for determining an orientation and position of an RFID reader within the space at each of a plurality of RFID tag read times; performing operations by the RFID reader to read a plurality of RFID inventory tags one or more times; processing the inertial reference measurement data to determine at least RFID reader orientation and position estimates at times of each read of said RFID inventory tags; defining a plurality of cones associated with each of said plurality of RFID inventory tags, each cone having a vertex which is the RFID reader position estimate at a respective time of the plurality of RFID tag read times and an angle which is in inverse proportion to a signal strength of a signal received from a respective RFID inventory tag of the plurality of RFID inventory tags; mapping the plurality of cones to a model; analyzing the model to identify at least one set of cones which overlap each other and are associated with reads for a respective RFID inventory tag of the plurality of RFID inventory tags; and deriving a position estimate for the respective inventory tag based on intersecting portions of the cones in the set of cones which was previously identified.