Communications: electrical – Condition responsive indicating system – Specific condition
Reexamination Certificate
1999-05-05
2001-06-12
Wu, Daniel J. (Department: 2736)
Communications: electrical
Condition responsive indicating system
Specific condition
Reexamination Certificate
active
06246326
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the printing of labels and more specifically to the printing and encoding of labels containing radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, herein referred to as smart labels.
2. Description of Related Art
The automatic identification industry has undergone many recent developments with respect to the use of transponders to track and identify objects. RFID systems are well known in the art, and the basic RFID system consists of an antenna, a transceiver, and a transponder (RFID tag). The RFID tag is encoded with information for easy retrieval. The antenna emits radio signals to activate the RFID tag so that the tag can be read, and acts as a conduit between the tag and the transceiver. When the antenna is packaged with the transceiver, an interrogator is created. The interrogator is used to read the information from the RFID tag when necessary. The interrogator emits radio waves in various ranges, depending upon the power output of the interrogator as well as the range of the RFID tag. When an RFID tag passes through the electromagnetic zone, it detects the interrogator's activation signal through an antenna in the RFID tag. The antenna senses the interrogating field and acts as the method of transmitting a response to interrogation. The interrogator receives and decodes the data encoded in the RFID tag's integrated circuit and the data is passed to a host computer for processing.
A so-called smart label is a development from RFID systems that incorporates an integrated circuit coupled to an antenna with read/write capability used to store data for identification and tracking of articles. The resulting RFID tag is small enough to be placed into a standard adhesive label without appreciably affecting the thickness of the label. Thus, the smart label can be used in many applications such as express parcel delivery, airline baggage handling and security verification. The smart label offers advantages over standard labels by providing the ability to rewrite data into the label, read the label without line-of-sight restriction, and longer read range.
Conventional prior art label printers are capable of printing labels in a fast, efficient way. However, with the development of smart labels, there exists a need for label printers that can not only print visible indicia such as bar code symbols, addresses, logos, etc., but that also have the capability to read and write to RFID tags. Optimally, the interrogating functions would be carried out in the same time frame as the exterior printing of the label. Unfortunately, no prior art printer has effectively been able to accomplish this.
Prior art label printers generally comprise thermal printers, which use a thermal printing head for the transfer of indicia to the labels. The thermal print head is generally connected electronically to a computer processor by way of a control circuit. The thermal print head includes at least one electrically-resistive thermal print element that is maintained in contact against an opposing pressure member, with the thermal print element being capable of producing heat upon the application of an electronic signal thereto. A thermal print medium, such as a specially-coated paper in sheet or strip form, is interposed between the thermal print head and the pressure member, whereby the pressure member maintains the thermal print medium in contact with the thermal print element. When the thermal print medium is at ambient temperature, the coating is inactive; however, when the temperature of the thermal print medium is raised to or above a certain threshold temperature, the coating undergoes a chemical reaction and is exposed. Thus, when an electrical signal is applied to the thermal print element, the heat produced thereby raises the temperature of the thermal print medium above a threshold temperature so as to expose at least a portion of the coating, whereby a character or a portion of a character is printed. Thermal printers have many inherent advantages over other types of printers including the production of clearly printed images at high output rates, quiet and clean operation, and relatively small size.
Prototype printers that attempt to combine thermal printing technology with RFID interrogating technology are deficient in that the write time to the RFID tag takes substantially longer than the printing time to the label.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a method and apparatus to increase the speed required to program the RFID tag portion of a smart label.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a method and apparatus to increase the speed of the interrogating portion of a smart label relative to the exterior printing speed of the smart label so that the two functions are completed in a similar time frame.
It is still a further object of this invention to provide a method and apparatus to increase the overall throughput speed of a smart label.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with the teachings of the present invention, a performance optimized smart label printer is provided to increase the speed of encoding RFID tags to coincide with the printing of visible indicia on the exterior of the label. The present invention includes a standard thermal label printer equipped with the capability to read and write to RFID tags. The present invention further comprises several methods to speed up the delivery of the printing and encoding of a smart label.
The label printing system of the present invention incorporates a thermal printing unit with an RF driver to produce smart labels. The smart label printer includes a central processing unit that accesses memory and commands from various locations, and transmits digital signals to and from the thermal printing unit and the RF driver. An artificial intelligence model is also included which can be used to predict incomplete RFID tag data.
The delivery of the smart label is optimized by incorporating various methods of manipulating data to be loaded into the printing system. For example, RFID tag data can be placed in front of printing data, or prepended, so that the encoding of the RFID tag can begin at the earliest possible time, thereby increasing throughput of each label. Also, RFID tag data can be compressed down from 8 bits per character so that fewer data blocks are necessary. In addition, the communication delay associated with the input of data to the RFID tag can largely be eliminated by pre-loading fixed and regularly varying data ranges, such as incrementing serial numbers, into the printer so that the pre-loaded data can be emptied from the printer memory, enabling memory availability for varying data to be sent from a host computer. Furthermore, the speed of printing and encoding smart labels can be increased by using an artificial intelligence model to predict varying data that is unavailable at the time of printing.
Another feature of the present invention which will increase overall throughput speed is the unique arrangement of antennas used to program the transponders. When the media has to move too fast for the data manipulation methods to compensate, data may be written to the transponder over an extended distance or by several antennas at the same location. Finally, throughput speed can also be increased by creating additional residence time for the RFID tag antennas by extending the pathway between the label origin and the print head.
A more complete understanding of the performance optimized smart label printer will be afforded to those skilled in the art, as well as a realization of additional advantages and objects thereof, by a consideration of the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment. Reference will be made to the appended sheets of drawings which will first be described briefly.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4862160 (1989-08-01), Ekchian et al.
patent: 4900386 (1990-02-01), Richter-Jörsensen
patent: 5671146 (1997-09-01), Windel et al.
patent: 5838253 (1998-11-01), Wurz et al.
Larsson Jan-Erik
Wiklof Christopher A.
Intermec IP Corp.
O'Melveny & Myers LLP
Tweel , Jr. John
Wu Daniel J.
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