User's Manual

CHAPTER 3 NANOSCANNER SYSTEM FUNDAMENTALS

NANOSCANNER READER USER GUIDE • DOC # 8101029-000 REV A 22

Tag List Size

The Tag List is currently configured to hold up to 1000 unique tag IDs and their

associated data.

Reading Tags over the Network

The Alien RFID reader provides two methods with which to read tags: interactive

mode and autonomous mode.

• In interactive mode, the controlling application must issue commands to the

reader to read tags. This command will always return immediately with a list

of tags in view of the reader.

• In autonomous mode, the reader is set up to constantly reads tags, and to

initiate a conversation with a network listener when certain events arise.

While both methods are equally valid, the choice of method will usually be

determined by the needs of the controlling application.

Although it may be easier and require less coding to work in interactive mode, a

little investment in programming effort lets the user set up autonomous mode to

provide a more scalable system for multiple readers.

Interactive Mode

Reading tags in interactive mode is as simple as issuing a single command to the

reader via its network interface.

ASIC TAG READ COMMAND

This command is “get taglist”. The result is a text-based list of tags that the

reader can see, for example:

Tag:041C 1820 2812 4080, CRC:97FC, Disc:2003/01/21 02:24:00, Count:1, Ant:0

Tag:1155 8B14 5661 D40B, CRC:04C1, Disc:2003/01/21 04:14:47, Count:1, Ant:0

XML T

AG READ COMMAND

At any time the format of the taglist can be specified using the set tagListFormat

command. One of the options is XML format which would return the same tag list

as:

<Alien-RFID-Tag-List>

<Alien-RFID-Tag>

</Alien-RFID-Tag>

<Alien-RFID-Tag>