Patent ID: 7066388

Claim:
An RFID reader and imaging system for verifying an RFID read for determining if an RFID tag that was read is an RFID tag that was intended to be read, said system comprising: RFID reader circuitry for reading an RFID tag including receiving RFID tag data from the RFID tag; an imaging engine having an array of image sensors for sensing an image of an object and generating image data corresponding to said object; a database storing a plurality of RFID codes and image data associated with respective RFID codes of the plurality of RFID codes, wherein the associated image data represents at least one image of at least one object having an RFID tag; and a processing unit for receiving the RFID tag data from the RFID reader circuitry and the generated image data from the imaging engine, said processing unit comprising: an RFID decoding module including programmable instructions executable on the processing unit for decoding the received RFID tag data and generating an RFID code; a database query module including programmable instructions executable on the processing unit for accessing stored image data associated with an RFID code which matches the generated RFID code; and a comparator module including programmable instructions executable on the processing unit for comparing the generated image data, including an image of the generated image data, with the accessed image data, including an image of the accessed image data, for determining whether the generated image data corresponds to the generated RFID code for verifying the RFID read for determining if the RFID tag corresponds to the object, and if so, concluding that the RFID tag is the RFID tag intended to be read, and if not, concluding that the RFID tag corresponds to a different object and is not the RFID tag intended to be read.