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Telecommunications

Patent Issued for Adjusting Parameters Associated with Leakage Signals

2012 AUG 8 (VerticalNews) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Telecommunications Weekly -- A patent by the inventors Frederick, Thomas J. (Chapel Hill, NC); Repke, Joseph P. (Cary, NC), filed on April 27, 2007, was cleared and issued on July 24, 2012, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by VerticalNews correspondents.

Patent number 8226003 is assigned to Sirit Inc. (Irvine, CA).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: "Passive UHF RFID (radio frequency identification) protocols require the tag to be powered by the reader's field and to use the field to backscatter information on the same frequency. The technical term for such a system, where both the transmit and receive sections of the device are simultaneously operating on the same frequency is 'homodyne.' One class of homodyne systems intends to only transmit a pure continuous sinusoidal wave (CW) signal while in the receive mode. UHF RFID reader systems are of this class. A challenge is presented to the homodyne systems when the receiver section is not well isolated from the transmitter section. Transmitter (TX) leakage into the receive (RX) path can be as much as 110 dB above the desired backscattered receive signal. Such a high TX leakage to receive signal ratio leaves the receiver section quite susceptible to typical nonlinearities associated with standard cost effective analog signal processing components. Therefore an unusually high dynamic range in the receiver section would be required.

"Passive and semi-active (battery assisted) UHF RFID communications use radar cross section (RCS) modulation to send data from the transponder to the reader. That means the reader transmits a sinusoidal RF signal toward the transponder. Some of the RF energy which hits the transponder reflects back to the reader. By modulating its RCS, the transponder is able to communicate data back to the reader.

"This presents many design challenges. In particular, the reader electronics must be designed to receive a very weak signal while it is transmitting a very strong signal at the same frequency. Whereas many other wireless communications schemes use frequency division multiplexing, the RFID reader cannot since its own transmit field is being used as a medium for communications from transponder to reader. The transmit signal may be 1 watt or more, while the receive signal for semi-active transponders (those which only use the RF signal for communications, not for power) may be as low as 1 picowatt (10.sup.-12 watt), e.g., 12 orders of magnitude less power. For passive transponders the receive strength is usually at least 1 nanowatt (10.sup.31 9 watt), which is still pretty challenging."

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, VerticalNews journalists also obtained the inventors' summary information for this patent: "The present disclosure includes a system and method for adjusting parameters associated with leakage signals. In some implementations, an RFID reader includes an RF antenna, a transmitter section, a receiver section, a control module and a cancellation noise reduction (CNR) section. The transmitter section is coupled to the RF antenna and operable to generate a transmit signal to be transmitted by the RF antenna. The receiver section is coupled to the RF antenna and operable to receive a receive signal from the RF antenna. In addition, the receiver section further includes a de-rotation module and a control module. The de-rotation module is operable to de-rotate, by .theta., an in-phase signal and quadrature signal associated with the leakage signal. The control module is operable to generate control signals used to produce a signal for reducing the leakage signal in a receive path of the reader. The CNR section is operable to subtract the reduction signal from the leakage signal.

"The details of one or more embodiments of the invention are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features, objects, and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the description and drawings, and from the claims."

URL and more information on this patent, see: Frederick, Thomas J.; Repke, Joseph P.. Adjusting Parameters Associated with Leakage Signals. U.S. Patent Number 8226003, filed April 27, 2007, and issued July 24, 2012. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=100&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=4953&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=20120724.PD.&OS=ISD/20120724&RS=ISD/20120724

Keywords for this news article include: Sirit Inc., Electronics, Signal Processing, Wireless Technology, Wireless Communication, Radio Frequency Identification.