The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 19, 2005
Filed:
Oct. 18, 2001
Edward A. Richley, Gaithersburg, MD (US);
Robert J. Fontana, Potomac, MD (US);
Donald V. Perino, N. Potomac, MD (US);
Aitan Ameti, Germantown, MD (US);
Edward A. Richley, Gaithersburg, MD (US);
Robert J. Fontana, Potomac, MD (US);
Donald V. Perino, N. Potomac, MD (US);
Aitan Ameti, Germantown, MD (US);
Multispectral Solutions, Inc., Germantown, MD (US);
Abstract
An RF object locating system and method that uses or includes a set of N (N>2) receivers (monitoring stations) located at fixed positions in and/or about a region to be monitored, one or more reference transmitters that transmit a timing reference, a location processor that determines object location based on time-of-arrival measurements, and at least one object having an untethered tag transmitter that transmits RF pulses, which may additionally include object ID or other information. Free-running counters in the monitoring stations, whose phase offsets are determined relative to a reference transmitter, are frequency-locked with a centralized reference clock. Time-of-arrival measurements made at the monitoring stations may be stored and held in a local memory until polled by the location processor. The invention permits rapid acquisition of tag transmissions thereby enabling the monitoring of large numbers of objects, and also provides a unique approach to data correlation in severe multipath environments.