US 12,290,816 B2
Apparatus to facilitate transfer of biological specimens stored at cryogenic conditions
William Alan Blair, San Diego, CA (US); Timothy Alan Sharp, Farmingdale, NY (US); Amit Gupta, Jersey City, NJ (US); Kathryn Josephine Go, Somerville, MA (US); and William Nicholas Garbarini, Jr., Cranford, NJ (US)
Assigned to TMRW Life Sciences, Inc., New York, NY (US)
Filed by TMRW Life Sciences, Inc., New York, NY (US)
Filed on Feb. 23, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/113,297.
Application 18/113,297 is a continuation of application No. 17/082,359, filed on Oct. 28, 2020, granted, now 11,607,691.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/927,566, filed on Oct. 29, 2019.
Prior Publication US 2023/0191415 A1, Jun. 22, 2023
Int. Cl. B01L 3/00 (2006.01); A01N 1/147 (2025.01); B01L 7/00 (2006.01)
CPC B01L 3/50851 (2013.01) [A01N 1/147 (2025.01); B01L 3/5029 (2013.01); B01L 3/50825 (2013.01); B01L 7/50 (2013.01); B01L 2200/147 (2013.01); B01L 2300/042 (2013.01); B01L 2300/1883 (2013.01)] 21 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A system operable to provide signals indicative of occurrences of conditions associated with transfers of specimen containers between positions in storage cassettes and positions in transfer cassettes, the specimen containers marked with wireless transponders, the system comprising:
a first two-dimensional array of antennas, the first two-dimensional array of antennas having a first set of dimensions;
a second two-dimensional array of antennas, the second two-dimensional array of antennas having a second set of dimensions;
at least one radio communicatively coupled to the first two-dimensional array of antennas and the second two-dimensional array of antennas and configured to drive antennas of the first two-dimensional array and antennas of the second two-dimensional array to emit interrogation signals to interrogate the wireless transponders and to receive response signals from wireless transponders in a range of one or more antennas of the first two-dimensional array of antennas or one or more antennas of the second two-dimensional array of antennas, the at least one radio configured to determine one or more received signal strength indicator (RSSI) values of the response signals received from the wireless transponders in response to a given interrogation; and
a processor-based control system communicatively coupled to the at least one radio, wherein, for each respective received signal strength (RSSI) value of the determined one or more received signal strength indicator (RSSI) values, at least the radio or the processor-based control system is configured to determine a respective normalized RSSI value from the determined one or more RSSI values for each response signal of the response signals received from the wireless transponders in response to the given interrogation, and the processor-based control system is configured to determine, based at least in part on the respective normalized RSSI value, whether at least one wireless transponder of the wireless transponders is located at a first defined position of a first storage cassette of the storage cassettes or at a second defined position of a first transfer cassette of the transfer cassettes, and in response to a determination of the at least one wireless transponder of the wireless transponders not being located at the first defined position or at the second defined position, the processor-based control system is configured to provide a signal indicative of a first occurrence of a first defined condition.