Cisco Technology, Inc.

Proterra Operating Company, Inc.

Rajiv Singhal

Arthur Gerald Howarth

Christopher Wiborg

Roland Arthur Saville

Ralph Droms

Lawrence Rolfe Kreeger

Vikas Butaney

Dustin Grace

Seamus McGrath

Jayesh Chokshi

Bruce D Moon

Brian J Pevear

John Gerber

Roger Innes

Michael De Leo

Andre Lalljie

Thomas Blazak

Arthur G Howarth

Roland Saville

Gary Dennis Vogel

Vehicle depots or yards adapted to charge multiple electric vehicles include multiple charging electrodes to simultaneously direct power to multiple electric vehicles. The charging electrodes may direct power to the electric vehicles from an utility grid or from a secondary power source.

Depot charging of an electric vehicle fleet

Some embodiments of the present invention provide middleware functionality integrated into a module of a network device, such as a router or switch, that is configured to provide application-oriented network ('AON') services. Some preferred implementations of the invention provide policy-based application services for RFID data, such as conditional routing, security (encryption, identification, authentication and authorization), data translation and/or transformation, data compression, data caching, etc. Some preferred implementations can interpret an application request and route to an appropriate network address of an RFID reader. Preferably, ALE (application-level event) aggregation and filtering can also be performed on behalf of the application. Some methods of the invention allow event data to be sent to applications (including but not limited to business applications) as request-response messages. Other methods of the invention allow event data to be sent to applications in the form of asynchronous notifications.

Network based device for providing RFID middleware functionality

Methods and devices are provided for determining the status of a networked device, e.g., a networked RFID device. In some embodiments of the invention, a customized packet is used to transmit a 'heartbeat' from each of a plurality of networked devices to a server. Some such embodiments use a customized syslog packet for the heartbeats. The heartbeat includes identification information regarding the device, e.g., the unique electronic product code ('EPC') of the device. The identification information may include other identification and/or authentication information, such as a shared secret and time data, which may be hashed with the identification information. The heartbeat may include information indicating the health, accuracy and/or reliability of the device and/or of the network that includes the device.

Methods and apparatus for determining the status of a device

Methods and devices are provided for identifying, locating and provisioning individual RFID devices in a network with 'personalities' that are appropriate for the roles of the RFID devices. According to some implementations of the invention, a combination of EPC code information and existing networking standards form the basis of identifying and provisioning methods. For example, MAC address information and EPC information can be combined to identify a particular device and its location in a network. For implementations using the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol ('DHCP'), DHCP Options may be used to pass provisioning information. Some implementations employ Domain Name Service (&#x201c;DNS&#x201d;) and dynamic DNS (&#x201c;DDNS&#x201d;) to allow easy identification of RFID devices.

Methods and devices for assigning RFID device personality

According to some implementations of the present invention, RFID devices and middleware servers are automatically provisioned with a network address and with instructions for sending a request for a middleware server to a middleware server assigner. In some implementations, the middleware server assigner is a load balancer. In some implementations, a middleware server is associated with a plurality of RFID devices by associating a middleware server network address or names with the network addresses of the RFID devices. Preferred methods also provide for redundancy of middleware servers and dynamic re-assignment of RFID devices from an unavailable middleware server to an available middleware server.

Methods and devices for providing scalable RFID networks

Methods and devices are provided for identifying, locating and provisioning individual RFID devices in a network. According to some implementations of the invention, a combination of EPC code information and existing networking standards form the basis of identifying and provisioning methods. For example, MAC address information and EPC information can be combined to identify a particular device and its location in a network. For implementations using the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol ('DHCP'), DHCP Options may be used to pass provisioning information. Some implementations employ Domain Name Service ('DNS') and dynamic DNS (&#x201c;DDNS&#x201d;) to allow easy identification of RFID devices.

Methods and devices for locating and uniquely provisioning RFID devices

Methods and devices are provided for identifying and provisioning individual RFID devices in a network. According to some implementations of the invention, a combination of EPC code information and existing networking standards form the basis of identifying and provisioning methods. For example, MAC address information and EPC information can be combined to identify a particular device and its location in a network. For implementations using the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol ('DHCP'), DHCP Options may be used to pass provisioning information. Some implementations employ Domain Name Service ('DNS') and dynamic DNS (&#x201c;DDNS&#x201d;) to allow easy identification of RFID devices.

Methods and devices for uniquely provisioning RFID devices

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Rajiv Singhal