Patent ID: 11924924
Assignee: ROSEMOUNT INC.
Field: nan (nan)
Classification: CPC nan | IPC H

Claim 36:
37. A location awareness system, comprising:
a plurality of tags, a plurality of anchors, and a plurality of anchor network gateways for communication between tags and anchors, the plurality of network anchor gateways providing a plurality of anchor networks, each of the plurality of anchor networks connecting at least one of the plurality of network anchor gateways directly to at least one of the plurality of anchors, and the plurality of anchors providing a plurality of anchor to tag networks;
a network operating element separate from and coupled to the plurality of anchor network gateways; and
a communication network coupling the plurality of anchor network gateways to the network operating element;
wherein the network operating element is configured to range the plurality of tags by:
using accurate timing, provided by a time source of the network operating element, of an existing industrial time division multiple access wireless communication protocol to provide a global location network schedule for the system;
wherein the plurality of anchors and the anchor networks have a shared sense of time;
wherein the network operating element comprises: a time source independent of the plurality of tags and from the plurality of anchors and a time division multiple access location network manager (TLNM) configured to operate the system, the time source configured to provide timing information to the TLNM and through the TLNM provide timing information to the plurality of tags and to the plurality of anchors for operation of the system in conjunction with ranging information from the plurality of tags received through the plurality of anchors and the at least one network anchor gateway,
wherein the timing information is passed from the TLNM over the communication network to the wireless anchor network gateway and the wireless anchor network gateway passes the timing information on to the anchors over the wireless anchor network, and
wherein the tag to anchor communication operates on a schedule that is independent from a schedule for operation of the wireless anchor network.