Method and system for detecting a specific relative position between two objects

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10802172-B2
Application number	US-201716321482-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 27, 2017
Priority date	Aug 1, 2016
Publication date	Oct 13, 2020
Grant date	Oct 13, 2020

Abstract

A system for detecting a specific relative position between a reader and a receiver, including: an inductive contactless receiver including an antenna winding and a circuit for selectively modulating a load; an inductive contactless reader including: a transceiver antenna circuit having nonzero mutual inductance with the antenna winding for the position, a communication circuit connected to the transceiver antenna circuit, a receiver antenna circuit having mutual inductance with the antenna winding that exhibits a minimum for the position, and a processing circuit for: identifying presence of a receiver by detecting nonzero mutual inductance between the transceiver antenna circuit and an antenna winding, and detecting a mutual inductance minimum between the receiver antenna circuit and an antenna winding.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A system for detecting a specific relative position between a radiofrequency reader and a radiofrequency receiver, comprising:
an inductive contactless radiofrequency receiver comprising an antenna winding and a circuit configured to selectively modulate electrical load at terminals of the antenna winding;
an inductive contactless radiofrequency reader comprising:
a transceiver antenna circuit having nonzero mutual inductance with the antenna winding of the radiofrequency receiver for the specific relative position;
a communication circuit, comprising a radiofrequency emission chain and a radiofrequency reception chain that are connected to the transceiver antenna circuit;
a receiver antenna circuit having mutual inductance with the antenna winding of the radiofrequency receiver that exhibits a minimum for the specific relative position;
a processing circuit connected to the transceiver antenna circuit and configured to:
identify presence of a receiver by detecting nonzero mutual inductance between the transceiver antenna circuit and an antenna winding;
detect a mutual inductance minimum between the receiver antenna circuit and an antenna winding;
determine that the reader and a radiofrequency receiver are in the specific relative position during identification of the presence of a receiver at the same time as the detection of a mutual inductance minimum between the receiver antenna circuit and an antenna winding.

2. The detection system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the transceiver antenna circuit has nonzero mutual inductance with the antenna winding when the reader and the receiver are at a distance of less than 20 mm from the specific relative position.

3. The detection system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the processing circuit is configured to determine that the reader and the radiofrequency receiver are in the specific relative position only after having identified beforehand detection of mutual inductance between the receiver antenna circuit and an antenna winding that is greater than a threshold.

4. The detection system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the inductive coupling factor between the receiver antenna circuit and the transceiver antenna circuit is less than 1%.

5. The detection system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the receiver is an RFID tag.

6. The detection system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the radiofrequency emission chain is configured to communicate, by the transceiver antenna circuit, at a first frequency, the circuit of the receiver being configured to selectively modulate the electrical load at the terminals of the antenna winding at a frequency different from the first frequency.

7. The detection system as claimed in claim 6 , wherein the circuit of the receiver is configured to selectively modulate the electrical load at the terminals of the antenna winding at a subcarrier of the first frequency.

8. The detection system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the transceiver circuit has a length at least twice as long as a length of the antenna winding.

9. The detection system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the processing circuit is configured to calculate a correlation between a signal received on the transceiver antenna circuit and a signal received on the receiver antenna circuit.

10. The detection system as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising a device for guiding relative movement between the radiofrequency reader and the radiofrequency receiver along a predefined path, the predefined path passing through the specific relative position.

11. The detection system as claimed in claim 10 , further comprising an elongated component guided along the path predefined with respect to the radiofrequency reader, the elongated component including a plurality of the radiofrequency receivers fixed at various locations along the elongated component.

12. A method for detecting a specific relative position between a radiofrequency reader and a radiofrequency tag, with:
the radiofrequency receiver being of inductive contactless type and comprising an antenna winding;
the reader being an inductive contactless radiofrequency reader, comprising:
a transceiver antenna circuit having nonzero mutual inductance with the antenna winding of the radiofrequency receiver for the specific relative position;
a receiver antenna circuit having mutual inductance with the antenna winding of the radiofrequency receiver that exhibits a minimum for the specific relative position;

the method comprising:
emitting a radiofrequency signal by the transceiver antenna circuit of the radiofrequency reader;
modulating an electrical load at terminals of the antenna winding of the receiver in response to the emission of the radiofrequency signal;
identifying presence of the receiver by detecting nonzero mutual inductance between the transceiver antenna circuit and the antenna winding;
determining that the reader and the radiofrequency receiver are in the specific relative position during the identification of the presence of the receiver at the same time as detection of a mutual inductance minimum between the receiver antenna circuit and the antenna winding.

Assignees

• Commissariat Energie Atomique

Inventors

• Thomas Thierry
• Reverdy Jacques

Classifications

• G01V3/10 Primary

  using induction coils · CPC title

• G06K7/10455

  the record carriers being fixed to an endless tape or at least not fixed to further objects · CPC title

• G06K7/10128 Primary

  the step consisting of detection of the presence of one or more record carriers in the vicinity of the interrogation device · CPC title

• H04B5/0075

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04B5/02

  Electricity · mapped topic