Patent ID: 7683761

Claim:
A method comprising the steps of: providing a plurality of active RF tags within a volume of interest, each active RF tag comprising an application identifier, wherein said active RF tag maximizes battery life by utilizing a plurality of power consumption modes; providing at least one data collection node; registering level n nodes (1≦n≦N), which comprise active RF tags accessible directly or indirectly by said data collection node, by compelling level n+1 nodes to report their unit identifiers to level n nodes, updating routing indices of said level n nodes with the unit identifiers of level n+1 nodes, sending to said data collection node by said level n nodes a transmission comprising level n+1 node unit identifiers, and updating registration status of said level n+1 nodes, wherein said updating occurs when said level n+1 nodes receive said transmission; populating routing indices of registered nodes using connection strings, wherein said routing indices are stored in a data storage device of each registered active RF tag and provide path data for communication between registered nodes; and communicating data between said active RF tags and said data collection node according to said routing indices; thereby autonomously establishing and utilizing an active-RF-tag network, wherein said method utilizes a message frame structure for communications, said message frame structure comprising an application identifier field.