Method and apparatus for sensing an environmental condition during frequency hopping

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10224903-B2
Application number	US-201715665275-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 31, 2017
Priority date	Nov 18, 2006
Publication date	Mar 5, 2019
Grant date	Mar 5, 2019

Abstract

A method includes receiving a series of radio frequency (RF) signals, where, from RF signal to RF signal of the series of RF signals, a carrier frequency is changed in accordance with a frequency hopping pattern. The method further includes, while receiving the series of RF signals, sensing an environmental condition by, for a frequency hop of at least some frequency hops of the frequency hopping pattern, adjusting a characteristic of a wireless sensor to maintain proximal alignment of a resonant frequency of the wireless sensor with the carrier frequency corresponding to a present frequency of the at least some frequency hops and generating a value to represent the adjustment of the characteristic, where a set of values is generated for the at least some frequency hops and where the set of values is used to determine a sensed value of the environmental condition.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for execution by a wireless sensor, the method comprises:
receiving a series of radio frequency (RF) signals, wherein, from RF signal to RF signal of the series of RF signals, a carrier frequency is changed in accordance with a frequency hopping pattern; and
while receiving the series of RF signals, sensing an environmental condition by:
for a frequency hop of at least some frequency hops of the frequency hopping pattern:
adjusting a characteristic of the wireless sensor to maintain proximal alignment of a resonant frequency of the wireless sensor with the carrier frequency corresponding to a present frequency of the at least some frequency hops; and
generating a value to represent the adjustment of the characteristic, wherein a set of values is generated for the at least some frequency hops, wherein the set of values is used to determine a sensed value of the environmental condition.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the frequency hopping pattern comprises:
a periodic, a non-sequential, or a random pattern to switch the carrier frequency of a plurality of carrier frequencies to another carrier frequency of the plurality of carrier frequencies.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the adjusting the characteristic comprises:
adjusting capacitance of a tank circuit coupled to an antenna that receives the series of RF signals, wherein the wireless sensor includes the tank circuit and the antenna.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the adjusting the characteristic comprises one of:
adjusting impedance of an antenna of the wireless sensor to affect the resonant frequency;
adjusting capacitance of a capacitor of the wireless sensor to affect the resonant frequency, wherein the capacitor includes one or more of a varactor and a selectable capacitor bank; and
adjusting inductance of an inductor of the wireless sensor to affect the resonant frequency.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprises:
sending, by the wireless sensor, the set of values for the at least some frequency hops to a sensor computing device, wherein the sensor computing device normalizes the set of values to produce a normalized value that represents the sensed value of the environmental condition; or
normalizing, by the wireless sensor, the set of values to produce the normalized value and sending, by the wireless sensor, the normalized value to the sensor computing device.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the normalizing the set of values comprises:
identifying a subset of the values of the set of values corresponding to a subset of carrier frequencies of a plurality of frequencies of the series of RF signals; and
normalizing the subset of values based on frequency differences between the subset of carrier frequencies and differences between values of the subset of values.

7. A wireless sensor comprises:
a radio frequency (RF) receiving circuit operable to receive a series of radio frequency (RF) signals, wherein, from RF signal to RF signal of the series of RF signals, a carrier frequency is changed in accordance with a frequency hopping pattern; and
a processing module operably coupled to the RF receiving circuit, wherein the processing module is operable to sense an environmental condition by:
for a frequency hop of at least some frequency hops of the frequency hopping pattern:
adjusting a characteristic of the wireless sensor to maintain proximal alignment of a resonant frequency of the wireless sensor with the carrier frequency corresponding to a present frequency of the at least some frequency hops; and
generating a value to represent the adjustment of the characteristic, wherein a set of values is generated for the at least some frequency hops, wherein the set of values is used to determine a sensed value of the environmental condition.

8. The wireless sensor of claim 7 , wherein the frequency hopping pattern comprises:
a periodic, a non-sequential, or a random pattern to switch the carrier frequency of a plurality of carrier frequencies to another carrier frequency of the plurality of carrier frequencies.

9. The wireless sensor of claim 7 , wherein the processing module is operable to adjust the characteristic by:
adjusting capacitance of a tank circuit coupled to an antenna that receives the series of RF signals, wherein the wireless sensor includes the tank circuit and the antenna.

10. The wireless sensor of claim 7 , wherein the processing module is operable to adjust the characteristic by one of:
adjusting impedance of an antenna of the wireless sensor to affect the resonant frequency;
adjusting capacitance of a capacitor of the wireless sensor to affect the resonant frequency, wherein the capacitor includes one or more of a varactor and a selectable capacitor bank; and
adjusting inductance of an inductor of the wireless sensor to affect the resonant frequency.

11. The wireless sensor of claim 7 further comprises:
an RF transmitting circuit operable to transmit the set of values to a sensor computing device, wherein the sensor computing device is operable to normalize the set of values to produce a normalized value that represents a sensed value of the environmental condition; or
the processing module operable to normalize the set of values to produce the normalized value and the RF transmitting circuit operable to send the normalized value to the sensor computing device.

12. The wireless sensor of claim 11 , wherein the set of values is normalized by:
identifying a subset of the values of the set of values corresponding to a subset of carrier frequencies of a plurality of frequencies of the series of RF signals; and
normalizing the subset of values based on frequency differences between the subset of carrier frequencies and differences between values of the subset of values.

Assignees

• Rfmicron Inc

Inventors

• Rokhsaz Shahriar
• Pitner Greg

Classifications

• H04W4/70

  Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC] · CPC title

• G06K19/0723

  the record carrier comprising an arrangement for non-contact communication, e.g. wireless communication circuits on transponder cards, non-contact smart cards or RFIDs · CPC title

• H04B5/0062

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01Q1/36

  Structural form of radiating elements, e.g. cone, spiral, umbrella; {Particular materials used therewith}(H01Q1/08, H01Q1/14 take precedence) · CPC title

• G06K7/10336

  the antenna being of the near field type, inductive coil · CPC title