Wal-mart Stores, Inc.

Walmart Apollo, LLC

Thomas Edward Stiefel

Nicholaus Adam Jones

Bruce Walter Wilkinson

Jarrod Lee Bourlon

Alvin Scott Taulbee

Jeremy Tingler

An electronic shelf label system comprising a plurality of electronic shelf labels is provided.

Methods and systems for an electronic shelf label system

Item movement is determined via wireless tracking using RFID data from at least one RFID reader. The RFID data associates RFID tag information with each antenna of the RFID reader that receives the tag information. At least one processer is configured to identify a first appearance of unique tag information in the RFID data. Items may be grouped when their first appearance in RFID data and their antenna association indicates that they first appear in a location within a predetermined amount of time, as indicated by RFID data, and/or when they have all moved from a previous location within a predetermined amount of time, as indicated by different RFID data. A group designation comprises the relevant unique tag information, which may be stored in memory along with a time stamp.

Merchandise event monitoring via wireless tracking

An electronic shelf label system comprising a plurality of electronic shelf labels is provided. A central computing system transmits data transmissions to the plurality of electronic shelf labels at a first power level. A candidate electronic shelf label from the plurality of electronic shelf labels periodically activate from a sleep mode to identify whether there is an existing master electronic shelf label from the plurality of electronic shelf labels. The candidate electronic shelf label becomes a new master electronic shelf label based on a set of specified conditions to transmit programming instructions received from the central computing system to one or more electronic shelf labels.

According to an embodiment, a computer-implemented method of managing inventory performed by a processor includes receiving in a digital or analog format, from a first computing device, a first request for first radio frequency identification (RFID) tag data associated with a first plurality of RFID tags and receiving in a digital or analog format, from a second computing device, a second request for second RFID tag data associated with a second plurality of RFID tags. In response to the first request and the second request, the method further includes automatically selecting a selected one of a first interrogation mode and a second interrogation mode based on the first request and the second request, and automatically transmitting configuration information to an RFID reader to operate in the selected interrogation mode.

Automatic self-learning RFID reader configurator

Item movement is determined via wireless tracking using RFID data from at least one RFID reader. The RFID data associates RFID tag information with each antenna of the RFID reader that receives the tag information. At least one processor is configured to identify a first appearance of unique tag information in the RFID data. Items may be grouped when their first appearance in RFID data and their antenna association indicates that they first appear in a location within a predetermined amount of time, as indicated by RFID data, and/or when they have all moved from a previous location within a predetermined amount of time, as indicated by different RFID data. A group designation comprises the relevant unique tag information, which may be stored in memory along with a time stamp.

According to an embodiment, a computer-implemented method of managing inventory includes receiving, at an antenna operatively coupled to a radio-frequency identification (RFID) reader, product identification information encoded in an RF signal transmitted by a plurality of RFID tags. Each of the RFID tags is associated with a respective one of a plurality of products. The method further includes processing, by a processor and using the product identification information, information contained in a portion of the encoded RF signal to compare apparent location information associated with the RFID reader with prior location information associated with at least one of the products, and updating, by the processor, the apparent location information to match the prior location information where the apparent location information is different than the prior location information.

Discrepancy analysis of RFID reads to determine locations

A computer-implemented method of managing inventory includes receiving, at an antenna operatively coupled to a radio-frequency identification (RFID) reader, product identification information encoded in an RF signal transmitted by a plurality of RFID tags. Each of the RFID tags is associated with a respective one of a plurality of products. The method further includes processing, by a processor, the product identification information contained in a portion of the encoded RF signal to identify a characteristic associated with each of the products, and identifying, by the processor using the product identification information, one of the products having a characteristic different from another one of the products. The method may include identifying a majority of the products having a characteristic in common based on the product identification information, and identifying at least one of the products having a characteristic different from the majority.

Growing community of inventors

Bentonville, AR, United States of America

Thomas Edward Stiefel