Patent ID: 8487756

Claim:
An inventory management system that is arranged for tracking inventory in a tracking area, the system comprising: a central processing unit that is arranged to track inventory in response to communications received over a communication network; a plurality of locators, wherein each of the plurality of locators is arranged to communicate with the central processing unit over the communication network, and also arranged to communicate with one or more transponders located within the tracking area, wherein a selected locator from the plurality of locators is configured to encode a transmission sequence with a first identifier associated with a group of transponders, and transmit the encoded transmission sequence in a first wireless broadcast; and wherein at least one of the plurality of locators is configured to receive one or more reply transmission sequences, correlate received reply transmission sequences with an identified sequence to generate a correlation vector for each of the one or more reply transmission sequences, wherein the identified sequence is associated with the one or more transponders, determine a time of arrival for each corresponding correlation vector, and forward the time of arrival and corresponding correlation vector to the central processing unit; and a transponder that is positioned within the tracking area and arranged to: capture information from at least a portion of the first wireless broadcast; correlate the captured information with a reference sequence, wherein the reference sequence is associated with the first identifier; identify a correlation when the captured information correlates with the internally stored reference sequence; encode a reply sequence with a second identifier associated with the transponder; determine a precise time interval to transmit the encoded reply sequence based on the previously received first wireless broadcast; and transmit the encoded reply sequence in a second wireless broadcast, wherein the transmission of the encoded reply sequence is transmitted at the precisely determined time interval.