User's Guide Part 1

CHAPTER 3 NANOSCANNER SYSTEM OVERVIEW
NANOSCANNER READER USERGUIDE • DOC ??? 20
© 2003 Alien Technology™
• For example, multiple readers in a warehouse may be named “loading bay
1”, “loading bay 2” etc., thus providing a clear indication as to the physical
location of the reader.
The Reader Type parameter details the specific type of reader sending out the
heartbeat. This information is hard-coded into the reader’s firmware and is not
user-configurable.
The IP Address and Command Port parameters detail the location of the
reader on the network. The IP address is simply the network address of the
reader. The command port is the port number on which the reader is listening for
incoming user commands. Typically this is port 23, the standard telnet port,
allowing a user to communicate with the reader over the network by typing “telnet
23” into most computers.
Heartbeat Time parameter. The final piece of information in the heartbeat
message is the time to the next heartbeat. This time (in seconds) enables any
application software to detect whether a reader is powered-down or the network
connection breaks; if a new heartbeat is not received after the expected time
period, then such an interruption to normal service can be detected.
H
EARTBEATS AND SOFTWARE
The Nanoscanner Reader Developer’s Kit that accompanies the Nanoscanner
reader provides source code and software libraries to listen for and understand
these network heartbeats in both Java and Visual Basic languages.
The Alien RFID Gateway application, also bundled with the development kit,
uses the Java version of these libraries to build its active reader list on the main
screen.