Location sensing technology for detecting asset location

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2025337506-A1
Application number	US-202519261746-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jul 7, 2025
Priority date	Dec 30, 2020
Publication date	Oct 30, 2025
Grant date	—

Abstract

Various embodiments employ multiple readers and tags in fixed locations in different geographical areas and/or along different storage units. This allows for more granular or precise location sensing. Particular embodiments employ multiple environment tags in various geographical locations and within multiple storage units. Using this new infrastructure setup, some embodiments can perform new functionality by predicting whether a target asset is in a particular geographical location, predict whether the asset is within a particular storage unit based on the proportion of readers mapped to that shelf which are actually reading the tag on the asset, and/or can predict where an asset's exact location in the located storage unit is based on comparing indications of signal strength values between each reader and tag in the storage unit with other indications of signal strength values between each reader and the tag that is attached to the asset.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A system comprising:
a first set of reader devices mapped to a first geographical area; a first set of environment tags coupled to the first geographical area and configured to provide first data to the first set of reader devices; and one or more computing devices that are configured to: determine, based at least in part on a mapping, that the first set of reader devices is mapped to the first geographical area, determine a proportion of the first set of reader devices that has received third data from a target tag coupled to a target asset, determine, based at least in part on the proportion, that the target asset is at the first geographical area, and determine a specific location of the target asset at the first geographical area based at least in part on comparing one or more indications of signal strength readings between at least one reader device of the first set of reader devices and at least one environment tag of the first set of environment tags with one or more other indications of signal strength readings between the at least one reader device and the target tag.

2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more computing devices are configured to determine that the target asset is at the first geographical area by:
determining, based at least in part on the mapping, that a second set of reader devices is mapped to a second geographical area; determining a second proportion of the second set of reader devices that has received the third data from the target tag; and determining, based at least in part on the proportion being higher than the second proportion, that the target asset is at the first geographical area.

3 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more computing devices are configured to determine the specific location of the target asset at the first geographical area by:
generating a first normalized distance between the target tag and the at least one reader device based at least in part on the one or more indications of signal strength readings; for each environment tag of the first set of environment tags, generating a second normalized distance between the environment tag and the at least one reader device based at least in part on the one or more other indications of signal strength readings; and generating a distance between the environment tag and the target tag based at least in part on the first normalized distance and the second normalized distance for the environment tag; and determining the specific location based at least in part on the distance for each environment tag of the first set of environment tags.

4 . The system of claim 3 , wherein the distance between each environment tag of the first set of environment tags and the target asset corresponds to a physical separation proximity between the environment tag and the target tag.

5 . The system of claim 3 , wherein the mapping provides a position of each environment tag of the first set of environment tags with respect to the first geographical area, and the one or more computing devices are configured to determine the specific location of the target asset at the first geographical area by determining the specific location based at least in part on the distance and the position for each environment tag of the first set of environment tags.

6 . The system of claim 5 , wherein the position comprises an X-coordinate and a Y-coordinate of a multi-dimensional coordinate grid representing the first geographical area.

7 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the third data is received by the at least one reader device over a particular time window.

8 . A method comprising:
receiving, by a computer processor, an indication that a reader device has received first data from a target tag coupled to a target asset, wherein: the reader device is part of a plurality of reader devices; each reader device of the plurality of reader devices is mapped to at least one geographical area of a plurality of geographical areas; and the reader device is mapped to a first geographical area of the plurality of geographical areas; determining, by the computer processor and based at least in part on the indication, that the target asset is at the first geographical area; generating, by the computer processor, a first normalized distance between the target tag and the reader device based at least in part on one or more indications of signal strength readings between the reader device and the target tag; for each environment tag of a plurality of environment tags: generating, by the computer processor, a second normalized distance between the environment tag and the reader device based at least in part on one or more other indications of signal strength readings between the environment tag and the reader device; generating, by the computer processor, a distance between the environment tag and the target tag based at least in part on the first normalized distance and the second normalized distance for the environment tag; and determining, by the computer processor, a specific location of the target asset at the first geographical area based at least in part on the distance for each environment tag of the plurality of environment tags.

9 . The method of claim 8 , wherein the distance between each environment tag of the plurality of environment tags and the target asset corresponds to a physical separation proximity between the environment tag and the target tag.

10 . The method of claim 8 , wherein a mapping provides a position of each environment tag of the plurality of environment tags with respect to the first geographical area, and determining the specific location of the target asset at the first geographical area comprises determining the specific location based at least in part on the distance and the position for each environment tag of the plurality of environment tags.

11 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the position comprises an X-coordinate and a Y-coordinate of a multi-dimensional coordinate grid representing the first geographical area.

12 . The method of claim 10 , wherein:
generating the first normalized distance between the target tag and the reader device comprises generating a first set of vectors in vector space representing the first normalized distance between the target tag and the reader device, for each environment tag of the plurality of environment tags, generating the second normalized distance between the environment tag and at least one of the reader device comprises generating a second set of vectors in the vector space representing the second normalized distance between the environment tag and the reader device, and for each environment tag of the plurality of environment tags, generating the distance between the environment tag and the target tag comprises determining a segment distance between the first set of vectors and the second set of vectors.

13 . The method of claim 8 , wherein the one or more indications of signal strength readings and the one or more other indications of signal strength readings are received over a particular time window.

14 . The method of claim 8 , wherein the reader device, the target tag, and the plurality of environment tags are part of a radio frequency identification system.

15 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by computing hardware, configure the computing hardware to perform operations comprising:
receiving an indication that a first reader device and a second reader device have received first data from a target tag coupled to a targe

Assignees

• United parcel service america inc

Inventors

• Freeman Mallory
• Major Timothy
• Britton Matthew
• Skorb Lauren

Classifications

• G06K7/10099 Primary

  the directional field being used for pinpointing the location of the record carrier, e.g. for finding or locating an RFID tag amongst a plurality of RFID tags, each RFID tag being associated with an object, e.g. for physically locating the RFID tagged object in a warehouse · CPC title

• G06K7/10356

  using a plurality of antennas, e.g. configurations including means to resolve interference between the plurality of antennas · CPC title

• G06K7/10188

  the repeating consisting of intelligently propagating data from record carriers via intermediate stations to the interrogation device, e.g. a distant RFID or RFID falling in a "shadow" region sending its identification data to an interrogation device using at least the help of one further RFID that is positioned in a region "visible" to the interrogation device, the further RFID therefore functioning as a relay station · CPC title

• H04W4/021

  Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences · CPC title

• G06Q10/0833

  Tracking · CPC title