An electronic price tag-based intelligent management system for laboratory instruments

Abstract

This invention discloses an intelligent management system for laboratory instruments based on electronic shelf labels, comprising an instrument management platform, a base station management platform, a communication base station, and electronic shelf label terminals. The instrument management platform issues update commands, which are forwarded to the communication base station via the base station management platform. The communication base station integrates a dynamic channel allocation and collision management module, broadcasting an update map beacon containing the contention window width during batch updates. Each electronic shelf label terminal calculates its time slot sequence number based on its own ID hash value and determines the backoff time based on historical collision counts, sending a reservation request in the corresponding time slot. The base station dynamically adjusts the contention window width based on collision statistics, employs data fragmentation and selective retransmission mechanisms to send information, and prioritizes high-priority devices according to signal quality, allowing them to send earlier. This invention solves the problems of traditional paper labels being unmodifiable and existing electronic shelf labels experiencing channel congestion and low efficiency during large-scale concurrent updates.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention belongs to the field of Internet of Things electronic tags and intelligent laboratory management technology, and particularly relates to an intelligent management system for laboratory instruments based on electronic price tags. It is especially suitable for biological, chemical and pharmaceutical research and development laboratories that need to perform batch labeling updates and efficient wireless management of a large number of instruments. Background Technology

[0002] Laboratories are crucial locations for scientific research, testing, and teaching practice, and the labeling and management of various instruments and equipment is a fundamental aspect of ensuring the orderly conduct of experimental work. Currently, the vast majority of laboratories still use traditional paper or plastic labels to identify instrument information. For example, handwritten labels or thermal paper labels printed on the instrument casing are affixed to the instrument to indicate the instrument name, serial number, responsible person, calibration date, storage location, and other information. These labels are simple to produce and inexpensive, and therefore widely used.

[0003] However, with the expansion of laboratory scale and the increasing demands for standardized instrument management, the inherent defects of traditional labels have become increasingly apparent. On the one hand, traditional labels are for single use only; once printed, the information cannot be changed. When the person responsible for the instrument changes, the calibration date approaches, or the instrument's status changes from normal to maintenance or out of service, management personnel must reprint new labels, remove the old ones, and re-affix them. This process is not only time-consuming and labor-intensive, but frequent label changes can also leave adhesive residue on the instrument surface and even corrode the casing of some precision instruments. On the other hand, laboratory environments often involve chemical reagent evaporation, temperature and humidity fluctuations, and frequent personnel contact. Paper labels are prone to fading, curling, soiling, or even falling off, resulting in unclear or completely lost instrument information, causing inconvenience for users and supervisors, and creating potential problems for compliance inspections of the laboratory.

[0004] In recent years, with the development of IoT technology, electronic shelf labels have been successfully applied in the supermarket retail sector, featuring remote information updates, clear display, and low power consumption. However, existing supermarket electronic shelf label systems mainly focus on the static display of short texts such as product prices and names, typically supporting only sequential updates for small batches (dozens) of terminals, and lacking optimized design for batch concurrent update scenarios. When directly transplanting such systems to laboratory instrument management scenarios, facing the need for simultaneous information changes on hundreds or even thousands of instruments (such as batch date updates after annual calibration expiration, or unified modifications by responsible persons after departmental reorganization), the traditional one-to-one sequential transmission method will result in lengthy update times, while the simple broadcast concurrent method is prone to wireless channel collisions and data retransmission storms, severely reducing overall update efficiency and making it difficult to meet the timeliness requirements of daily laboratory management. Summary of the Invention

[0005] This invention provides a laboratory instrument intelligent management system based on electronic price tags, aiming to solve the technical problems of frequent data collisions, large retransmission overhead, and long update time caused by multiple terminals competing for wireless channels in the scenario of large-scale batch updates of laboratory instruments in existing electronic price tag systems.

[0006] Specifically, the technical solution provided by this invention is as follows: A smart management system for laboratory instruments based on electronic shelf labels is disclosed. The system includes an instrument management platform, a base station management platform, at least one communication base station, and multiple electronic shelf label terminals. The instrument management platform stores, queries, and edits laboratory instrument information, and generates update instructions and corresponding data packets for the instrument information. The base station management platform is communicatively connected to the instrument management platform and manages the communication base station, forwarding the update instructions and corresponding data packets. The communication base station is communicatively connected to the base station management platform and receives update instructions and wirelessly transmits data packets. Each electronic shelf label terminal is bound to a laboratory instrument and includes a wireless receiving module and an electronic display screen for receiving data packets and displaying instrument information.

[0007] Furthermore, the communication base station integrates a dynamic channel allocation and conflict management module. When the instrument management platform issues a batch update task involving multiple electronic price tag terminals, the communication base station performs the following operations: S1. Broadcast a beacon frame through the dynamic channel allocation and conflict management module. The beacon frame includes the current contention window width, the unit time slot length, and the backoff factor. S2. Each electronic price tag terminal to be updated receives the beacon frame, calculates the backoff time based on its own unique ID, the contention window width, the backoff factor, and a counter for recording the number of collisions, and sends a reservation request to the communication base station after the backoff time. S3. The communication base station listens to the reservation requests in each time slot, counts the number of terminals that successfully made reservations and the number of terminals that collided, and dynamically adjusts the width of the next round of competition window based on the statistical results. S4. For a successfully booked electronic price tag terminal, the communication base station sends a corresponding instrument information data packet to it to update the display content of the electronic price tag terminal.

[0008] Furthermore, the formula for calculating the retreat time mentioned in S2 is as follows:

[0009]

[0010] in, Indicates the time of retreat. This refers to the time slot number. The unit time slot length is represented by modulo, where mod is the modulo operation. The hash value is calculated using a hash function for the electronic shelf label terminal ID. Each electronic shelf label terminal obtains a uniformly distributed integer between 0 and W-1 by modulo operation of its ID hash value and the current competition window width W; this integer is used as the time slot number. If the terminal experienced a collision in the last reservation attempt, then a backoff factor will be used. α Multiply by the number of collisions This further extends the retreat time, thereby reducing the probability of a second collision.

[0011] Furthermore, the formula for calculating the width of the next round of competition window described in S3 is as follows:

[0012] in, Indicates the width of the next round of competition window. This is the preset maximum window limit. The number of terminals that collided. This represents the number of terminals that successfully made reservations; min indicates taking the minimum value. This indicates rounding up to the nearest integer.

[0013] Furthermore, before sending the instrument information data packet, the communication base station reads the historical communication quality data of each electronic price tag terminal. The historical communication quality data includes signal strength and acknowledgment frame success rate. Based on the historical communication quality data, the electronic price tag terminals to be updated are divided into high priority, medium priority, and low priority. The beacon frame carries the starting slot offset corresponding to each priority, so that the reservation requests of high priority terminals are sent first.

[0014] Preferably, the communication base station sends instrument information data packets to the successfully booked electronic price tag terminals in descending order of priority.

[0015] Furthermore, the communication base station employs a data fragmentation and selective retransmission strategy to send instrument information data packets: the data packets required by each electronic shelf label terminal are divided into multiple fixed-size fragments, and a fragment sequence number is added to each fragment; during the reception process, the electronic shelf label terminal replies to the base station with an acknowledgment frame, and sends a missing fragment report when a missing fragment is detected; the base station only retransmits the fragments specified in the missing fragment report.

[0016] Preferably, when the number of electronic shelf label terminals to be updated is lower than a preset threshold, the communication base station automatically switches to targeted transmission mode and directly sends data packets to the target electronic shelf label terminal without broadcasting the beacon frame.

[0017] Preferably, the electronic price tag terminal uses an e-ink screen, which maintains display even after power failure following content updates. During non-update periods, the electronic price tag terminal is in standby / dormant state, periodically listening to the heartbeat signal of the communication base station.

[0018] Furthermore, the instrument management platform maintains an instrument information table, and each record in the instrument information table includes fields for instrument number, instrument name, responsible person, calibration date, usage status, and storage location; the base station management platform is connected to the communication base station via a local area network or a wide area network, and the communication base station communicates wirelessly with the electronic price tag terminal via 2.4GHz, 433MHz, or NB-IoT protocols.

[0019] Compared with the prior art, the present invention has at least the following beneficial effects: Firstly, addressing the inherent problems of traditional laboratory paper labels, such as unmodifiable information, cumbersome replacement, and susceptibility to environmental damage and detachment, this invention uses an electronic label terminal as the instrument identification carrier. By remotely issuing commands through the instrument management platform, information for single or batch instruments can be quickly updated, completely eliminating the repetitive labor of manually printing, cutting, and pasting labels. At the same time, the electronic ink screen's ability to maintain display even when power is off ensures clear readability in complex laboratory environments such as chemical reagent evaporation and temperature and humidity changes, significantly reducing maintenance costs.

[0020] Secondly, addressing the shortcomings of supermarket electronic shelf label systems in large-scale batch updates in laboratory scenarios, such as channel congestion, severe collision retransmissions, and excessively long overall processing times, this invention innovatively integrates a dynamic channel allocation and collision management module into the communication base station. This module utilizes hash modulo and adaptive backoff algorithms to evenly distribute a large number of electronic shelf label terminals across multiple time slots during the reservation phase, effectively avoiding severe collisions during concurrent transmission. More importantly, the base station can dynamically adjust the contention window width based on the collision statistics of each round, ensuring that even with an initially uneven distribution, the system can automatically distribute the terminals to an ideal state within a limited number of rounds, thus guaranteeing smoothness when hundreds or even thousands of instruments are updated simultaneously. Simultaneously, data fragmentation and selective retransmission mechanisms further avoid the inefficiency of full packet retransmission due to single-bit errors in long packet transmission, elevating wireless channel utilization to a new level.

[0021] Furthermore, this invention introduces a priority allocation strategy based on signal quality and confirmation success rate, allowing high-priority devices with better communication quality to receive transmission opportunities earlier, while low-priority devices with weaker signals are scheduled for final processing. This effectively avoids the repeated retransmissions of a few weak signal terminals dragging down the entire batch update process, resulting in a significant reduction in the overall completion time perceived by the laboratory administrator.

[0022] In summary, this invention not only fundamentally solves the pain points of traditional label management, but also makes up for the shortcomings of existing electronic price tag technology in terms of large-scale concurrent updates, channel resource optimization, and differentiated service quality, providing an efficient and reliable solution for the digital and intelligent management of laboratory instruments. Attached Figure Description

[0023] The accompanying drawings are provided to further illustrate the invention and form part of the specification. They are used together with the embodiments of the invention to explain the invention and do not constitute a limitation thereof.

[0024] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the overall system framework provided in an embodiment of the present invention. Detailed Implementation

[0025] To make the objectives, technical solutions, and advantages of the embodiments of the present invention clearer, the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. Obviously, the described embodiments are only some embodiments of the present invention, and not all embodiments. Based on the embodiments of the present invention, other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art without creative effort are all within the scope of protection of the present invention.

[0026] This embodiment provides a laboratory instrument intelligent management system based on electronic price tags, such as... Figure 1 As shown, the system includes an instrument management platform, a base station management platform, at least one communication base station, and multiple electronic shelf label terminals. The instrument management platform and the base station management platform are connected via a network. The base station management platform is connected to each communication base station via a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN). Each communication base station establishes a bidirectional data transmission channel with multiple electronic shelf label terminals via a wireless communication link (e.g., 2.4GHz, 433MHz, or NB-IoT protocol). Each electronic shelf label terminal corresponds one-to-one with a laboratory instrument and is typically fixed to the instrument surface or vicinity using adhesive backing or clips.

[0027] The instrument management platform is the core control unit of the system, deployed on a local laboratory server or cloud server, running an operating system (such as Windows Server or Linux) and a database management system (such as MySQL). The platform provides a web management interface for laboratory administrators to log in and perform operations such as entering, editing, deleting, querying, batch modifying, and exporting historical data for instruments. The instrument management platform maintains an instrument information table, with each record containing at least the following fields: instrument number, instrument name, specifications, responsible person, calibration date, next calibration date, usage status (normal / under maintenance / out of service), and storage location. When an administrator modifies the information of one or more instruments and confirms the update, the instrument management platform generates an update command and corresponding data packet, and sends the command to the base station management platform via a standardized API interface (such as an HTTP-based RESTful API). To ensure data transmission security, all API communications are encrypted using AES.

[0028] The base station management platform, acting as an intermediate service layer, is responsible for managing the basic information of communication base stations (such as base station number, IP address, MAC address, and operating status) and providing interfaces between the instrument management platform and the communication base stations. The base station management platform can be deployed locally or in the cloud. It receives update commands from the instrument management platform, parses the commands, and forwards the update data packets to the corresponding communication base station based on the target instrument's network address. Furthermore, the base station management platform is also responsible for collecting the electronic price tag terminal status feedback reported by each communication base station (such as update successful, update failed, low battery, offline, etc.), summarizing it, and returning it to the instrument management platform for administrator review.

[0029] The communication base station is the communication hub of the system. Each communication base station includes a main control module, a network interface module, a wireless communication module, and a dynamic channel allocation and conflict management module unique to this invention. The network interface module typically connects to the laboratory LAN via Ethernet or Wi-Fi to maintain a connection with the base station management platform. The wireless communication module uses a 2.4GHz radio frequency chip, supports multi-point-to-point communication, and a single base station has a coverage radius of approximately 10 to 15 meters under unobstructed conditions, capable of simultaneously connecting more than 100 electronic price tag terminals. The dynamic channel allocation and conflict management module is integrated into the base station's main control firmware in software form. When the base station receives a batch update task from the base station management platform, this module replaces the ordinary sequential transmission or simple broadcast method, minimizing the probability of concurrent conflicts through a hash backoff time slot mechanism, and maintaining high efficiency for the system under different scale batch updates through dynamic window adjustment.

[0030] An electronic shelf label terminal is a low-power wireless display device. Its core components include an e-ink screen (available in sizes of 2.13 inches, 2.66 inches, 2.9 inches, or 3.5 inches), a wireless receiver module, a control unit (typically a low-power microcontroller such as the CC2530 or NRF52832), and memory. The e-ink screen retains its display content even when power is lost, significantly reducing energy consumption. Each electronic shelf label terminal is programmed with a unique address code (e.g., a 6-byte MAC address or a custom ID) at the factory, and this code cannot be changed within the system. During system deployment, the administrator binds the electronic shelf label terminal to laboratory instruments and associates the address code of the electronic shelf label with the unique serial number of the instrument in the instrument management platform, thus achieving one label per device.

[0031] The following details the specific working process of a communication base station performing batch data updates on multiple electronic price tag terminals. This process can effectively avoid wireless channel collisions and significantly shorten the overall update time when hundreds or even thousands of instruments need to update information simultaneously.

[0032] When the instrument management platform issues a batch update task involving multiple electronic shelf label terminals, the corresponding communication base station first activates the dynamic channel allocation and conflict management module to construct a beacon frame called the update map. This beacon frame contains the following information: a list of electronic shelf label IDs to be updated in this round, the length (in bytes) of the data packet to be sent for each ID, the initial width W of the current contention window, the unit time slot length T_slot, and the backoff factor. α The current value ( α (The default setting is 0.1). The base station sends this beacon frame via wireless broadcast, and all electronic shelf label terminals within the coverage area can receive it.

[0033] Each electronic price tag terminal that receives the updated map beacon first parses out W, T_slot, and ... α Then, the backoff time slot selection is performed. Specifically, the terminal uses its own unique ID as input and calculates an integer value using a defined hash function (such as CRC32 or a simple linear congruential method). Then, calculate the time slot number you need to wait for using the following formula. and the corresponding absolute retreat time :

[0034]

[0035] in, This is a non-negative integer counter stored internally by the electronic price tag terminal, used to record the number of collisions experienced so far in this batch update process (initial value is 0). The formula means: each terminal obtains a uniformly distributed integer between 0 and W-1 based on its ID hash value modulo W, which is used as the base time slot number; if the terminal experienced a collision in the previous reservation attempt (i.e., failed to successfully send a reservation request to the base station), then... α Multiplying the number of collisions further extends the backoff time, thereby reducing the probability of another collision. The unit time slot T_slot is usually set to 10 milliseconds. This value ensures sufficient time slot resolution without exceeding the response capability of ordinary wireless modules due to excessively short time slots.

[0036] Each electronic shelf label terminal calculates its own retreat time. After that, instead of sending data immediately, an internal timer is started to wait. Duration. When the timer expires, the terminal sends a short reservation request frame (RTS) to the communication base station. This frame only contains its own ID and the length of the data packet to be transmitted. After receiving the RTS, if the current channel is idle and system resources allow, the base station replies with a clear to send frame (CTS) and adds the terminal's ID to the successful reservation list. If multiple terminals happen to select the same time slot (i.e., the same k value and the same collision counter), their RTSs will collide in the air. The base station cannot correctly parse any of them, and these terminals will not receive a CTS within the preset time. Simultaneously, their respective collision counters will be reset. Automatically increment by 1.

[0037] In wireless communication, a collision refers to two or more electronic shelf label terminals transmitting data frames simultaneously (or with high temporal overlap) using the same wireless channel. Specifically, in this scenario: Assume two electronic shelf label terminals, A and B, have hash values ​​modulo the contention window width W, resulting in the same time slot number k, and their historical collision counters, C_collision, are also identical. According to the backoff formula, both terminals will calculate the exact same backoff time, meaning they will start their timers simultaneously and time out at the same time. After the timers expire, both terminals simultaneously begin transmitting RTS frames to the communication base station. The radio waves of these two RTS frames propagate simultaneously in physical space. Because they use the same wireless channel frequency (e.g., the same channel in the 2.4GHz band), the two electromagnetic waves will superimpose in space. When the phases of the two waves are different, the superimposed waveform will be distorted. The originally regular digital modulation signal (such as specific amplitude or phase states representing binary 0 and 1) is destroyed, causing the signal received by the receiver (communication base station) to no longer be a valid waveform of either original RTS frame, but rather an unrecognizable jumbled signal.

[0038] The base station completes all time slots in the current round (i.e., from...) k = 0 to k After listening to (W-1), count the number of terminals that successfully made reservations. and the number of terminals that collided. Based on these two values, the dynamic channel allocation and conflict management module calculates the new width W_new of the next round of contention window using the following formula:

[0039] in, This indicates the width of the competition window in the current round. The maximum window size preset by the system (e.g., 128) is represented by ceil, which indicates rounding up. The physical meaning of this formula is: when the number of collisions... Relative to the number of successes When the window width W is large, it will be increased appropriately, thus distributing numerous terminals across a wider time slot in the next round and reducing the probability of collisions. Conversely, if the number of successes far exceeds the number of collisions, the window will remain unchanged or even shrink (the increment in the formula is positive, but the increment is extremely small when the success rate is high; considering that the window is usually not actively shrunk to avoid collision recurrence, a hysteresis threshold can be set in the actual implementation, only shrinking after multiple consecutive rounds). (The window is narrowed only when necessary). Through this adaptive mechanism, the system can dynamically adjust the contention granularity according to the current channel congestion level, achieving near-optimal throughput.

[0040] For successfully reserved electronic shelf label terminals, the communication base station will begin sending actual data packets. Considering that laboratory instrument information may contain long text fields (such as instrument specifications, calibration precautions, etc.), the length of a single data packet can reach several thousand bytes. To avoid the inefficiency of retransmitting the entire packet due to a single-bit error during long packet transmission, the communication base station employs a data fragmentation and selective retransmission strategy. Specifically, the base station divides the data packet required by each electronic shelf label terminal into multiple fixed-size fragments, with each fragment recommended to be 128 bytes or 256 bytes. A fragment sequence number (e.g., 0, 1, 2…) and the total number of fragments are added to the header of each fragment. The base station sends the corresponding fragment sequence to each reserved terminal in priority order. The sending method can be continuous transmission, i.e., sending all fragments from one terminal before moving on to the next terminal, or alternating transmission between multiple terminals to utilize channel idle gaps. However, the latter increases implementation complexity; in this embodiment, continuous transmission is preferred.

[0041] During the fragment receiving process, the electronic shelf label terminal sends an acknowledgment frame (ACK) to the base station for each correctly received fragment, recording the sequence number of the received fragment. If the terminal does not receive the next fragment within a predetermined time, or detects a sequence number jump (e.g., receiving fragments 0, 1, and 3 but missing fragment 2), the terminal sends a fragment missing report to the base station, containing a list of missing fragment sequence numbers. Upon receiving this report, the base station only retransmits the missing fragments, without retransmitting the entire data packet. This mechanism is particularly important in laboratory environments with intermittent interference in the wireless channel, reducing retransmission overhead by more than 70%.

[0042] Once all segments of a specific electronic shelf label terminal have been successfully received and verified, the terminal control unit will parse the complete data composed of all segments, extract information such as instrument number, name, responsible person, and calibration date, and then drive the e-ink screen to refresh and display the new content. After the refresh is complete, the terminal sends a final completion flag to the communication base station. The communication base station collects the completion status of all terminals to be updated and packages a list of successfully updated and failed update terminal IDs, reporting it to the base station management platform. The base station management platform further summarizes and returns the results to the instrument management platform, where administrators can view the detailed results of the batch updates on the web interface.

[0043] In this embodiment, the electronic shelf label terminal uses a widely recognized hash function with good uniform distribution characteristics, such as CRC32 or MurmurHash. The core characteristic of this type of hash function is that even if the input value (terminal ID) exhibits obvious regularity (such as continuously increasing integers 1, 2, 3… or a sequence increasing at a fixed step size), its output result is still statistically approximately randomly uniformly distributed. Taking CRC32 as an example, for any two adjacent integer IDs, more than half of the bits in the CRC32 result are often flipped at the binary level. This avalanche effect makes the remainder k = CRC32(ID) mod W after modulo operation roughly uniformly distributed within the range of 0 to W-1. Therefore, in most practical deployment scenarios, the uniformity of the hash function itself is sufficient to avoid the extreme situation where all terminals map to only a few k, leading to severe congestion in these time slots while most slots remain idle.

[0044] Furthermore, the communication base station does not use the same W value fixedly, but updates W in real time each round based on collision statistics. In a certain round, if a large number of terminals are unfortunately mapped to a few k values, the base station will detect an abnormally high collision rate (N_coll is much larger than N_succ), and then significantly expand the contention window according to the window width update formula. When W expands from a smaller value (such as 16) to a larger value (such as 32 or 64), the new time slot number of the same terminal will be completely different from that of the previous round. More importantly, a group of terminals that were originally mapped to the same remainder k modulo W_old will be scattered to multiple different remainders modulo W_new. For example, suppose that when W=16, three terminals with IDs 1, 17, and 33 are all mapped to k=1; when W expands to 32, the hash value of these three terminals modulo 32 is very likely no longer the same number, but is scattered to different slots. Therefore, by dynamically adjusting W, the system actively breaks the congestion deadlock caused by static mapping. After at most two to three rounds of adjustment, even the most extreme ID distribution can be effectively dispersed.

[0045] The feasibility of the above process is further illustrated below with a specific parameter example. Assume a laboratory has deployed a communication base station, and within its coverage area, 200 electronic price tag terminals need to simultaneously update instrument information. Each terminal's data packet size is 1.5 kilobytes (containing approximately 150 Chinese characters). The base station's initial contention window W_old is set to 32, T_slot is set to 10 milliseconds, and the backoff factor... α Set the value to 0.1, and the maximum window size W_max to 128. Initialize the collision counter C_collision for all terminals to 0.

[0046] After the first round of broadcasting, the 200 terminals are evenly distributed across 32 time slots (0 to 31) using hashing, with an average of approximately 6.25 terminals per time slot. Within the same time slot, the RTS (Real-Time Schedule) of multiple terminals may collide, making it impossible for the base station to resolve. Theoretically, the number of terminals successfully reserved in this round should be at most one per time slot, resulting in approximately 32 successful reservations and 168 collisions. At this point, N_succ is approximately 32, and N_coll is approximately 168. Substituting these values ​​into the window adjustment formula yields W_new = 195, but due to the upper limit of 128, W_new = 128. After expanding the window to 128, the 168 terminals in the second round are distributed across time slots (0 to 127), with an average of approximately 1.31 terminals per time slot, significantly reducing the collision probability. The second round is expected to see over 100 successful reservations, with the remaining dozens of terminals proceeding to the third round, typically all of which are successfully reserved within three to four rounds.

[0047] After the reservation is completed, the base station sends data fragments to each terminal sequentially. Each 1.5KB data fragment is divided into 12 fragments (128 bytes each), transmitted at an air rate of 250kbps. Each fragment takes approximately 4 milliseconds to transmit. Including inter-frame intervals and ACKs, the total data transmission time for each terminal is approximately 60 milliseconds. While sequential transmission from 200 terminals takes 12 seconds, considering the base station's ability to process acknowledgments from multiple terminals in parallel and to perform appropriate pipelined operations, the overall batch update time (including the reservation and transmission phases) is typically completed within 15 to 20 seconds. Compared to traditional sequential transmission (200 x 1 second = 200 seconds) or uncontrolled broadcast concurrency (which is highly prone to congestion or even failure), the efficiency improvement is extremely significant.

[0048] In some embodiments, when the instrument management platform issues a batch update task involving multiple electronic shelf label terminals, the dynamic channel allocation and conflict management module of the corresponding communication base station first reads the historical communication quality data of each electronic shelf label terminal stored in its own memory, including the signal strength (RSSI) and acknowledgment frame (ACK) success rate of the most recent communications. Based on this data, the base station divides the electronic shelf labels to be updated into three priorities: high priority (signal strength higher than -60dBm and ACK success rate greater than 98%), medium priority (signal strength between -60dBm and -75dBm, or ACK success rate between 90% and 98%), and low priority (signal strength lower than -75dBm or ACK success rate lower than 90%, or newly added terminals that have not yet accumulated historical data). The purpose of prioritization is to allow electronic shelf label terminals with better communication quality to have an earlier opportunity to send update information, thereby reducing the drag on the overall progress caused by repeated retransmissions due to weak signals.

[0049] Specifically, in the updated map beacon frame broadcast by the base station, in addition to carrying the contention window width W, the unit time slot length T_slot, and the backoff factor,α In addition, it also carries three priority-specific starting slot offset values: offset_high, offset_mid, and offset_low. Here, offset_high = 0, offset_mid = M, and offset_low = 2M (M is a preset positive integer, for example, M = ...). W / 3 Each terminal calculates its own backoff time slot number k, and then adds the offset of its priority level to obtain the actual time slot number used. Since the offset of high-priority terminals is 0, they occupy the earliest batch of time slots (0...). W-1); the actual slots for medium-priority terminals were moved backwards to M. M+W-1; low-priority terminals are moved to 2M. 2M+W-1. In this way, high-priority terminals always send RTSs before medium- and low-priority terminals. The base station receives reservation requests from high-priority devices first within each time slot and allocates subsequent data transmission opportunities to them. Furthermore, the base station's internal queue management also gives higher scheduling priority to reservation requests from high-priority devices: when the base station receives multiple successfully parsed RTSs simultaneously, it replies to the high-priority device with the CTS first. After a successful reservation, the base station needs to actually send the instrument information data packets to each electronic price tag terminal. At this time, the base station sends them sequentially according to priority from high to low: that is, it first sends complete data fragments to all successfully reserved high-priority terminals, then medium-priority terminals, and finally low-priority terminals.

[0050] For sporadic updates of a single or a few instruments, the dynamic channel allocation and conflict management module of the communication base station can automatically detect that the number of terminals to be updated is lower than a preset threshold (e.g., less than 5). At this time, the system directly degrades to the conventional directional transmission mode, that is, the base station directly sends data packets to the target electronic price tag terminal without broadcasting map updates and backoff reservation process, so as to save signaling overhead.

[0051] Furthermore, the electronic shelf label terminal of this system features low power consumption. Except during batch updates when the wireless module operates at full speed, the terminal remains in standby / sleep mode for the vast majority of the time, only listening for a heartbeat signal from the base station every few seconds. The e-ink screen does not require continuous power during content updates and is completely powered off after the refresh is complete. Therefore, a single button battery (such as CR2032) can support the terminal's normal operation for more than 3 years.

[0052] Finally, it should be noted that the above embodiments are only used to illustrate the technical solutions of the present invention, and not to limit them; under the concept of the present invention, the technical features of the above embodiments or different embodiments can also be combined, the steps can be implemented in any order, and there are many other variations of different aspects of the present invention as described above, which are not provided in detail for the sake of brevity; although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the foregoing embodiments, those skilled in the art should understand that modifications can still be made to the technical solutions described in the foregoing embodiments, or equivalent substitutions can be made to some of the technical features; and these modifications or substitutions do not cause the essence of the corresponding technical solutions to deviate from the scope of the technical solutions of the embodiments of this application.

Claims

1. A laboratory instrument intelligent management system based on electronic price tags, characterized in that, The system includes an instrument management platform, a base station management platform, at least one communication base station, and multiple electronic price tag terminals. The instrument management platform is used to store, query, and edit laboratory instrument information, and to generate update instructions and corresponding data packets for instrument information. The base station management platform is communicatively connected to the instrument management platform and is used to manage the communication base station and forward the update instructions and corresponding data packets. The communication base station is communicatively connected to the base station management platform and is used to receive update instructions and wirelessly send data packets. Each electronic price tag terminal is bound to a laboratory instrument and includes a wireless receiving module and an electronic display screen for receiving data packets and displaying instrument information.

2. The intelligent management system for laboratory instruments as described in claim 1, characterized in that, The communication base station integrates a dynamic channel allocation and conflict management module. When the instrument management platform issues a batch update task involving multiple electronic price tag terminals, the communication base station performs the following operations: S1. Broadcast a beacon frame through the dynamic channel allocation and conflict management module. The beacon frame includes the current contention window width, the unit time slot length, and the backoff factor. S2. Each electronic price tag terminal to be updated receives the beacon frame, calculates the backoff time based on its own unique ID, the contention window width, the backoff factor, and a counter for recording the number of collisions, and sends a reservation request to the communication base station after the backoff time. S3. The communication base station listens to the reservation requests in each time slot, counts the number of terminals that successfully made reservations and the number of terminals that collided, and dynamically adjusts the width of the next round of competition window based on the statistical results. S4. For a successfully booked electronic price tag terminal, the communication base station sends a corresponding instrument information data packet to it to update the display content of the electronic price tag terminal.

3. The intelligent management system for laboratory instruments as described in claim 2, characterized in that, The formula for calculating the retreat time mentioned in S2 is: in, Indicates the time of retreat. This refers to the time slot number. The unit time slot length is represented by modulo, where mod is the modulo operation. The hash value is calculated using a hash function for the electronic shelf label terminal ID. Each electronic shelf label terminal obtains a uniformly distributed integer between 0 and W-1 by modulo operation of its ID hash value and the current competition window width W; this integer is used as the time slot number. If the terminal experienced a collision in the last reservation attempt, then a backoff factor will be used. α Multiply by the number of collisions This further extends the retreat time, thereby reducing the probability of a second collision.

4. The intelligent management system for laboratory instruments as described in claim 2, characterized in that, The formula for calculating the width of the next round of competition window as described in S3 is: in, Indicates the width of the next round of competition window. This is the preset maximum window limit. The number of terminals that collided. This represents the number of terminals that successfully made reservations; min indicates taking the minimum value. This indicates rounding up to the nearest integer.

5. The intelligent management system for laboratory instruments as described in claim 2, characterized in that, Before sending the instrument information data packet, the communication base station reads the historical communication quality data of each electronic price tag terminal. The historical communication quality data includes signal strength and acknowledgment frame success rate. Based on the historical communication quality data, the electronic price tag terminals to be updated are divided into high priority, medium priority, and low priority. The beacon frame carries the starting slot offset corresponding to each priority, so that the reservation requests of high priority terminals are sent first.

6. The intelligent management system for laboratory instruments according to claim 5, characterized in that, The communication base station sends instrument information data packets to the successfully booked electronic price tag terminals in descending order of priority.

7. The intelligent management system for laboratory instruments as described in claim 2 or 6, characterized in that, The communication base station uses a data fragmentation and selective retransmission strategy to send instrument information data packets: the data packets required by each electronic price tag terminal are divided into multiple fixed-size fragments, and a fragment number is added to each fragment; During the receiving process, the electronic price tag terminal replies with an acknowledgment frame to the base station and sends a missing report when a missing fragment is detected. The base station only retransmits the fragments specified in the missing report.

8. The intelligent management system for laboratory instruments as described in claim 2, characterized in that, When the number of electronic shelf label terminals to be updated is lower than a preset threshold, the communication base station automatically switches to targeted transmission mode and directly sends data packets to the target electronic shelf label terminal without broadcasting the beacon frame.

9. The intelligent management system for laboratory instruments as described in claim 1, characterized in that, The electronic price tag terminal uses an e-ink screen, which continues to display even after power is cut off following content updates. During non-updating periods, the electronic price tag terminal is in standby sleep mode and only periodically listens to the heartbeat signal of the communication base station.

10. The intelligent management system for laboratory instruments as described in claim 1, characterized in that, The instrument management platform maintains an instrument information table. Each record in the instrument information table includes fields for instrument number, instrument name, responsible person, calibration date, usage status, and storage location. The base station management platform is connected to the communication base station via a local area network or a wide area network. The communication base station communicates wirelessly with the electronic price tag terminal via 2.4GHz, 433MHz, or NB-IoT protocols.

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