MX2011013847A - Process for determining the missing units in a vending machine by means of the rfid technology. - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention describes a process for determining the missing units in a vending machine by means of the RFID technology and software for interpreting the data, where a RFID label is located in the area where the article to be dispensed is housed, a device scanning the RFID label and sending continuous signals, so that when an item of liquid characteristics, with the humidity factor, is located over the label, this blocks the transmission and avoids the detection, but when the item is removed the transmission is activated once again and provides different data referring to the article pre-loaded in a data base such as shelf life, type of article, nutrimental value, etc, thus being easy to detect when an article is out of stock and needs to be replaced.

Description

PROCESS TO DETERMINE THE MISSING UNITS IN A VENDING MACHINE THROUGH THE USE OF RFID TECHNOLOGY DESCRIPTION OBJECT OF THE INVENTION The present invention uses reverse logic to determine the content that is missing in a vending machine. By means of a radio frequency tag "RFID" which is placed over a predefined area which will be occupied by a unit or product that is being sold. The unit or product must be a liquid, semi-liquid, or a thawed element which has a high moisture content. The RFID tag can not be read through moisture, which activates or starts reading the label information when the product or the unit is removed. This is the opposite of other devices that read RFID tags placed on products that are for sale and where the label is attached to the product itself for control. However, RFID tags are relatively expensive, for example, their cost ranges from 2 Mexican pesos and it is not profitable to place them in low-priced products since they make the product even more expensive, for example, it is not affordable to put a RFID card in a product that costs 10 Mexican pesos.

BACKGROUND There are many patents that describe the RFID relationship in vending machines. However, most of them focus on the fact that the label placed on the unit that is sold is required as described in the following documents: In US-A-5539394 a plurality of radio frequency identification tags are placed and interrogated simultaneously in an interrogation zone for an accelerated passage through a reading station. This is opposite to the intended operation of the terminal according to US Pat. No. 5,289,880. In US-A-4688026, labels capable of transmitting single codes wirelessly when activated by radio frequency (RF) energy are used to identify a variety of different positions and objects. The method has a particular utility in the realization of the inventory control of furniture or other objects since the labels can be mounted in points that are not easily observable, thus preserving their aesthetic appearance. The method requires that a location tag be placed at each site. Next, the scan is performed in two steps, first the location tag is scanned, and then the label associated with an item is scanned. If a user moves to a different location, the location tag must be scanned before scanning the items in that new situation. At the end of this form, we offer our limited results on RFID and vending machines.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES Figure 1 is a diagram representative of the placement of the RFID tag in the vending machine, where you can see the placement that this has with respect to the product.

Figure 2 is a diagram of the transmission of the data to the RFID tag, where the flow made by the signal emitted by the RFID tag and the reception and interaction with the database can be appreciated.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION According to the diagrams it can basically be seen that the transmission of the information begins in the RFID card (No. 1) which emits a signal to an antenna reading device (No.2) which is supported by software that assists to an application to interact or communicate with other applications (No.3), which is communicated to a database (No.4) that contains information previously loaded and selected referring to the characteristics of each product that will be available in the vending machine that in turn communicates and supports a radio frequency application available for the control of information (No.5) which facilitates the constant communication at a distance of a label placed in previously designated areas of a vending machine.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION This invention describes a process to determine the missing units in a vending machine by means of the use of RFID technology, as is known, vending machines are capable of supplying different products, automatically, with means for each user of the machine choose the desired product, from those offered by the machine, supply that is made prior to the introduction of a coin or group of coins, which may either be adjusted to the exact price of the product in question, or may establish a sum greater than said price, in which case the machine indicates to the user if the user must enter the coins that cover the price of the desired product, simultaneously the vending machine mobilizes the selected product, without having an adequate control on the expiration or properties thereof, of the In the same way there is no information if said product has been exhausted, in such a way that we opted to provide e an RFID tag positioned in the area previously designated by the operator of the machine and that for practical purposes will be the one under each product, said label sends information to a transponder device that emits a power signal and sends it to a Radio Frequency identification card (the different labels have different distance capabilities), placed below the position occupied by a product inside a vending machine, where said product is positioned in a certain area, the circuit of the RFID tag is energized and a weak signal is sent by means of the RFID card to an RFID antenna reader which performs a scan and receives the signal (the signal is basically a numerical label) the signal is transferred to the RFID middleware which is basically a processing software of RFID signals which compares the received signal with the information contained in a database which has the ability to contain information regarding the description of the article, age of the article, manufacturer, traceability data, etc., The application also has the ability to enable the RFID and execute the appropriate action (delete the inventory item, reordering the article, etc.), once an article with moisture (cold or frozen article) covers the area above the RFID tag, it can not be picked up or read when liquid or moisture is present.

Claims (5)

CLAIMS Having sufficiently described my invention, I consider it a novelty and therefore claim as my exclusive property, what is contained in the following clauses:

1. Process to determine the missing units in a vending machine characterized by integrating the following stages; A) An RFID tag is positioned in the area occupied by each product, so that the label covers the area below each product B) The label sends information to a transponder device that emits a power signal and sends it to a Radio Frequency Identification Card by means of an RFID antenna reader which performs a scan and receives the signal C) The signal transferred to the RFID is processed by an RFID signal software which compares the received signal with the information contained in a database which contains information regarding the description of the article, age of the article, manufacturer, data of traceability, etc.

2. Process for determining the missing units in a vending machine according to the previous claim characterized in that the articles that are positioned on the area of the RFID tag must have the characteristic of being water based and being able to generate humidity when refrigerated (article). liquid or with freezing capacity) so that the humidity generated interrupts radio frequency transmission by temporarily interrupting the reading circuit.

3. Process to determine the missing units in a vending machine according to the previous claim characterized in that when the articles are removed from their position the radio frequency transmission is activated again, detecting the absence and / or lack of products inside the vending machine .

4. Process to determine the missing units in a vending machine according to the previous claim characterized in that the identification information stored in the database includes the data of the state of the product, description and expiration.

5. Process to determine the missing units in a vending machine according to the previous claim characterized by the fact that the label sends a signal of historical non-detection of the product and an alarm is activated that indicates that the article's data is not recorded in the database.