Location measurement process for radio-frequency badges

• Main Authors: BRUMITT BARRETT L, HARRIS STEPHEN, KRUMM JOHN, SMITH GREGORY
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 08.12.2005
• Edition: 7
• Subjects: ANALOGOUS ARRANGEMENTS USING OTHER WAVES; CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; DETERMINING DISTANCE OR VELOCITY BY USE OF RADIO WAVES; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS; LOCATING OR PRESENCE-DETECTING BY USE OF THE REFLECTION ORRERADIATION OF RADIO WAVES; MEASURING; PHYSICS; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RADIO DIRECTION-FINDING; RADIO NAVIGATION; RECOGNITION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; TESTING

A process for determining the location of entities carrying transmitters (TXs) that transmit TX ID messages to at least one receiver (RX) connected to a computer, in a network of computers. Each RX sends data messages to its associated computer which includes an identifier identifying the TX transmitting the TX ID message, the signal strength of the received TX ID message, and a RX identifier. Each RX computer generates badge hit messages from each data message, and provides them to a centralized computer of the network. The centralized computer generates a badge hit table having a separate entry for each badge hit message, which has fields including the information received in the badge hit message and a hit time indicating the time the entry was added to the table. The badge hit table data is used to determining the location of the TXs, and so the entities.