Hand-held dual technology identification tag reading head

[54] HAND-HELD DUAL TECHNOLOGY

IDENTIFICATION TAG READING HEAD

[75] Inventor: Noel H. Eberhardt, Cupertino, Calif.

[73] Assignee: Indala Corporation, San Jose, Calif.

[21] Appl. No.: 14,523

[22] Filed: Feb. 8,1993

[51] Int.Cl.« G06F7/10

[52] U.S. CI 235/472; 235/383;

235/454

[58] Field of Search 235/472, 383, 454

[56] References Cited

U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS

5,216,233 6/1993 Main et al 235/472

Primary Examiner—Harold Pitts

Attorney, Agent, or Firm—Spencer, Frank & Schneider

[57] ABSTRACT

A hand-held dual reading head including a hand-held housing having a light transmissive window at one end thereof; and containing an actuatable bar-code reader, which produces a light beam which exits the housing via the window and detects light from the beam re

flected from a bar code tag to generate a first electrical signal corresponding to bar code data read from the tag. The housing also contains an actuatable radio frequency tag reader which includes a transmit/receive coil mounted adjacent the one end of the housing containing the window, for producing a radio frequency signal of a first frequency to energize a radio frequency transponder-type identification tag and for receiving an identifying signal of a second frequency transmitted by an energized radio frequency identification tag to provide a second electrical output signal corresponding to the tag identifying signal, preferably in the same signal format as the bar-code data. The reading head has a common signal output connected to receive the first and second electrical signals, and a manually actuatable switch arrangement mounted on the housing for selectively actuating one of the bar-code tag reader and the radio frequency tag reader depending on the type tag to be read. Preferably, the housing is gun-shaped and the switch arrangement is a trigger-like normally OFF switch with two ON positions, one for each of the readers.

11 Claims, 4 Drawing Sheets