AUTONOMOUSLY IDENTIFYING AND LOCATING ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT MODULES IN A RACK

• Main Authors: Boyer, Mark J, Thakkar, Rahul C, Wickline, Brandon E, Freeman, Roland N
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 12.08.2021
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; DATA PROCESSING SYSTEMS OR METHODS, SPECIALLY ADAPTED FORADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL, SUPERVISORYOR FORECASTING PURPOSES; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS; PHYSICS; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECOGNITION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE,COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL, SUPERVISORY OR FORECASTINGPURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR

A system is provided that includes a rack including mount positions to accept electronic equipment modules that are rack mountable and equipped with respective RFID tags, and a RFID reader array including RFID readers each of which is associated with a respective mount position, and has a read field that among the mount positions extends into only the respective mount position. Processing circuitry causes an RFID reader to radiate an interrogation signal within its read field, and in response, receive module identifiable information from an RFID tag of an electronic equipment module mounted at the mount position. A signal including the module identifiable information and mount position identifiable information is transmitted to the processing circuitry, and a second signal to a computer configured to identify the electronic equipment module from the module identifiable information, and locate the electronic equipment module at the mount position from the mount position identifiable information.