Patent ID: 8378789

Claim:
A method for managing inventory, comprising: attaching a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag to each of a plurality of objects; associating a database entry with the objects and each corresponding RFID tag in a central database; positioning a plurality of interrogators at a plurality of locations, each of the interrogators being configured to perform wireless communications with corresponding RFID tags via a sensing antenna, wherein each sensing antenna is provided with a location identifier; the interrogators exciting the corresponding sensing antennas to receive identifying information from at least some of the corresponding RFID tags; determining the RFID tags from which identifying information is not received at the interrogators; in the event that the identifying information is not received from at least one of the RFID tags, determining whether a current iteration count for determining if identifying information is received at the interrogators is above a limit for the number of iterations; in the event that the current iteration count for determining if the identifying information is received at the interrogators is not above the limit for the number of iterations, incrementing the iteration count and disabling and then enabling a driver for each sensing antenna; in response to enabling the drivers for the sensing antennas, receiving by the respective interrogators the identifying information from each RFID tag that is within communication range of the excited sensing antennas; determining a storage location of each object based on the identifying information of the corresponding RFID tag and the location identifier of the sensing antenna that is positioned closest to the object relative to the other sensing antennas; updating by the respective interrogators the database entry associated with each corresponding RFID tag to indicate the storage location of the objects; and retrieving inventory management information from the central database regarding the objects.