Patent ID: 7403744

Claim:
A wireless Personal Area Network (PAN) element, comprising: a primary function subsystem; and a wireless personal area network (WPAN) association function subsystem coupled to the primary function subsystem, wherein the WPAN association function subsystem includes a range measuring transceiver having radio frequency identifier (RFID) tag components, wherein the range measuring transceiver is addressable by one or more other PAN elements and is adapted to be addressed by the one or more other PAN elements in order to exchange identifiers with at least some of the one or more other PAN elements, and wherein the PAN element is also adapted to determine ranges and relative motions of at least some of the one or more other PAN elements using RFID measurements, and automatically to associate with a WPAN that includes a subset of the one or more other PAN elements that satisfy predetermined association criteria that include range and relative motion.