Patent ID: 6956472

Claim:
Vehicle monitoring apparatus using radio frequency identification technology comprising: a transportable RFID interrogator having a transceiver with a transmitting antenna; a plurality of individually encoded auto hang tags incorporating RFID transponders and suitable for affixing temporarily in a vehicle interior, each of said hang tags having at least one flat surface area with visible indicia thereon and configured to be affixed with the normal to said flat surface generally along a horizontal sight path through a window of said vehicle; each said RFID transponder including a memory element having encoded readable data, a controller microcircuit connected to read from said memory element, a modulator configured to be operated by said controller microcircuit, a receiver with at least one directional antenna coupled to provide a received signal to said control microcircuit, and a coupling between said modulator and said at least one horizontally directional antenna for causing transmission therefrom to be modulated in response to data read from said memory element.