Patent ID: 8749378
Filing Date: 2014-06-10
Classification: G01S,G06K,G06Q

Abstract:
1. A system for searching physical objects having one or more tags disposed respectively thereon, the system comprising: one or more substations arranged for communication with tags located within a range around at least one of the one or more substations, and at least one of the one or more substations configured to communicate a descriptor of a location of a substation; a base station arranged for communication with one or more substations located within a range around the base station; and an interrogation engine residing in the base station and configured to interrogate, in response to a search query specifying at least one of the physical objects, the one or more substations within the range around the base station, to determine whether the at least one physical object specified by the search query is located within the ranges around the respective one or more substations; wherein the one or more substations are configured to request and receive, in response to the interrogating, one or more tag descriptors from the one or more tags, calculate respective values of one or more local match counts of a number of tag descriptors matching the search query, and communicate the respective values of the one or more match counts and a number of the tags corresponding to each of the respective values of the match counts to the interrogation engine; and wherein the interrogation engine is configured to determine a location of the at least one physical object matching the search query based at least in part on the respective values of the one or more match counts and the number of the tags corresponding to each of the respective values of the match counts.