Patent ID: 11954551
Assignee: MEPS REAL-TIME, INC.
Field: Medical technology (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G  H | IPC G  H

Claim 17:
18. A method of establishing a radio frequency (RF) field within a container to identify and track an inventory of medical articles located in the container, the container having electrically-conductive walls within which the medical articles are located, at least some of the medical articles each having an attached identification device that is activated by RF energy and which responds to activation by sending an identification signal, the method comprising:
mounting an RF module within the electrically-conductive walls of the container, the RF module comprising:
a base mountable at the container, the base having a size selected to be compatible with the container size so that the base and components thereof may interact with medical articles placed within the container, the base having a data port and a power port;
multiple probes that form parts of the base, with the multiple probes being separated from each other and located within the electrically-conductive walls of the container to inject an activating RF field within the container for activating the identification devices of the medical articles located within the container and to receive identification signals from the activated identification devices;
a reader unit forming a part of the base and having a communications unit with which it connects to the data port, the reader unit also having a control unit connected to the power port and the communications unit, the control unit configured to use power received from the power port to control the probe to inject activating energy into the container to establish an activating RF field within the container, the control unit also configured to control the probe to stop injecting energy into the container and to receive the identification signals from the activated identification devices on the medical articles located within the electrically-conductive walls of the container, to process those identification signals, and to deliver identification data representative of the received identification signals to the data port through the communications unit;

controlling the multiple probes to sequentially inject the activating RF field into the container to activate the identification devices of the medical articles so that they will transmit identification signals;
controlling the multiple probes to stop injecting the activating RF field; and
receiving by the probe RF identification signals from the activated identification devices located on the medical articles within the container.