SCADA, Telematics & GPS Technologies

ColdTrak, the leading Cold Chain vehicle tracking system from market leading GPS tracking specialists CMS SupaTrak is helping UK businesses save money on cold chain running costs thanks to the tracking applications

The cold chain monitoring solution enables fleet managers to get more control of their cold chain fleets by tracking the exact location of their vehicles whilst allowing their drivers to monitor the precise temperatures of refrigerated cargo saving them considerable costs.

In accordance to EU regulation EN 12830:1999 all cold chain businesses must now supervise the exact temperature of chilled or refrigerated goods whilst in transit ColdTrak has proven to be an indispensable business asset.

ColdTrak works using the very latest ZigBee technology and uses robust sensors that send precise temperature recordings from the refrigerated trailer to a central information hub or system in the cab with the driver. Should there be any changes in temperature the driver will be notified and the correct action can be taken.

Source: Open Press

An Awarepoint white paper describes critical factors required to maximize your RFID system’s return on investment.

Real-time location systems (RTLSs) are an increasingly important strategic capability for a variety of business applications. RTLSs allow organizations to efficiently identify and track the location of supplies, personnel, equipment, and other items in real-time, as a cost-effective operational management tool.

With the success early adopters have had with RTLSs, the question is not whether to implement, but which technology is best suited for the many applications that can benefit from location awareness. An Awarepoint white paper, “Considering a Real-time Location System? First Consider the 5 Critical Success Factors,” can help maximize your return on investment and ensure long-term success of your RTLS investment.

“The implementation of RTLS technology should pay for itself as a result of shrinking the incidence of misplaced equipment, decreased rental costs, and increased utilization of equipment,” stated Jason Howe, CEO of Awarepoint Corp.

The five critical factors outlined in the white paper to obtain maximum benefit include:

• Enterprise-wide coverage—because assets and people move throughout your entire enterprise, to achieve maximum benefit, your RTLS deployment must cover every square inch of your enterprise.
• Location accuracy—to affect the highest impact for your strategic initiatives, room-level accuracy is a clear critical success factor.
• Installation and maintenance—a minimally invasive solution that does not compromise your existing IT network, does not interrupt daily business operations, and can be installed in days or weeks, is vital. Maintenance impact for hospital staff should be considered as well. It shouldn’t take a team of IT professionals to keep the system running.
• Interoperability—your RTLSs should be supported by standards-based technology and should offer an open application programming interface so that it’s capable of providing location and status data to both your end-users and to third-party applications.
• Low risk—you should partner with a vendor vested in your success. Look for a flexible business model that doesn’t require a large capital purchase or long-term contractual commitment, and allows you to easily expand assets as needed.

Added Howe, “In hospitals particularly, RTLSs can play an important role in automation of common tasks—improving operational efficiency, increasing patient flow, and enhancing patient safety. Knowing the location, status, and movement of equipment and people can be used to improve hospital business processes and asset utilization, reduce capital expense and rental costs, and improve staff productivity.”

The full white paper “Considering a Real-time Location System? First Consider the 5 Critical Success Factors” can be downloaded free off the company’s Web site.

Auto theft can be very dangerous and this is a car thief that should have thought twice before stealing a bait car in Washington State. Check out this dramatic video.

A bait car, also called a decoy car, is a vehicle used by a law enforcement agency to capture car thieves. The vehicles are specially modified, with features including GPS tracking, hidden cameras that record audio, video, time, and date, which can all be remotely monitored by police. A remote controlled immobiliser (known as a “kill” device in law enforcement jargon) is installed in the vehicle that allows police to disable the engine and lock the doors.

The car is filled with valuable items and then parked in a high-vehicle theft area. In some cases, the vehicle is simply left unlocked with the keys hanging from the ignition. When the car is stolen, officers are alerted, who then send the radio signal that shuts off power to the engine and locks the doors, preventing an escape. The practice does not violate entrapment laws, since suspects are not persuaded to steal the vehicle by any means other than its availability and their own motivation.

The concept and technology was first developed by Jason Cecchettini of Pegasus Technologies and was used by the Sacramento Police Department in 1996, using Sedans like the Toyota Camry, and sports cars, such as the Honda Prelude.

The bait car is a phenomenon in the study of criminal behavior since it offers a rare glimpse into the actions and reactions of suspects before, during and after the crime. Unlike other crimes caught on surveillance cameras, suspects, at least initially, believe and react as if the crime has been wholly successful, until the bait car is apprehended by law enforcement personnel.

The largest bait car fleet in North America is operated by the Integrated Municipal Provincial Auto Crime Team (IMPACT), based in Surrey, British Columbia. Surrey was designated the “car theft capital of North America” by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 2002. Their program was launched in 2004, and has contributed to a 10% drop in auto thefts since then.

A LoJack is a similar technology, in that it allows a vehicle to be remotely tracked if it is stolen. These are typically installed in police vehicles.

Bait cars can be used as part of a honey trap, a form of sting operation, in which criminals not known to the police are lured into exposing themselves. Unlike a sting operation that targets a known or suspected criminal, a honey trap establishes a general lure to attract unknown criminals.

Bait cars (and the stings they are used in) have been featured in numerous documentary or reality television programs, including COPS and World’s Wildest Police Videos. They are also the exclusive focus of a 2007 Court TV (now truTV) series simply titled Bait Car.

Links: News10, BaitCar, BSM Wireless

Fishery researchers in Thailand plan to adopt an RFID-enabled system to track the broodstock – the fish kept isolated for breeding purposes – of several fish species key to the country’s export business. With the system, researchers can track the development of the broodstock and supervise crossbreeding programs to improve the species.

Researchers at the Department of Fisheries Science at King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Lad-krabang are embedding RFID chips in three aquatic species, the Giant Prawn, Nile Tilapia and Walking Catfish. The three species are crucial to Thailand’s economy, with an export value of about 2 billion bahts a year.

Since last year, the team has embedded RFID chips into more than a thousand of the three aquatic species. Researchers are working to determine the least disruptive way to insert the tags into the tiny juvenile creatures. To keep the system simple, the tags will only include a serial number to identify the individual. Other information, such as the animal’s breed, its growth and diet, will be maintained in a database.

“We will track an animal’s growth on a monthly basis, to monitor its overall development. The software will help us analyze the data. If we find that the animal is not growing well, we will implement cross breeding to improve the species,” said project leader Rungtawan Panakulchaiwit.

The project has received funding from the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre, as well as support from two private RFID companies, Silicon Craft Technology and IE Technology. After the pilot program is completed, the research center plans to promote the technology to private aquatic-animal farms across the country to help improve their farm management.

Source: RFID News

Photo: Rekhan

GlobalTrak’s Remote Sensor Nodes (RSNs) increase the shipper’s ability to monitor cargo condition with a variable set of sensors for door status, humidity, temperature, a 3-axis accelerometer, and now an extremely sensitive gamma detector, a long term stable sensor with built-in temperature compensation and low power consumption.

Richard C. Meyers, CEO of GlobalTrak, described how the sensors on an RSN add important cargo data for GlobalTrak’s customers, “Remote Sensor Nodes send reports and real-time alerts to any GlobalTrak AMU over a ZigBee protocol wireless network, allowing the data to be communicated to stakeholders. This is a flexible and convenient way of placing sensors where they need to be within a loaded container, truck trailer, or railcar.”

In a radiation monitoring application, the GlobalTrak AMU is mounted on the exterior of the container, truck trailer, or railcar with one or more RSNs equipped with the gamma detector positioned inside the load in best detection positions. The detectors have low and high alarm thresholds to accommodate varying levels of background radiation, such as might be encountered in an ocean transit versus a land route.

The same ZigBee wireless network that allows RSNs to report their status through the AMU can be used to enhance shipment security by monitoring the status of EJ Brooks’ electronic strap seals on individual packages within the shipment or bolt seals on the door of a container, truck trailer, or rail car.

Source: MarketWatch

Image: MaritimeInstituteOnline

It’s easy to argue that road taxes are quite unfair because they’re flat: You pay fees to drive around; it doesn’t matter how much you actually use the car.

The Netherlands has decided to improve the country’s road tax by taxing according to the vehicle type, usage, hour and roads the vehicle is using. The system uses GPS, a car transmitter and a standard cell phone GSM network to send this information to a central computer that processes the information. Once these figures are calculated, the driver is charged. Congestion and the environment are both taken into consideration in the rate scheme. Using a highway that enters a city in peak hours while driving an SUV will be taxed more than driving a small car in a rural area where private vehicles are more of a necessity.

Dutch officials hope the system will reduce CO₂ emissions and congestion, because the Dutch government claims that there is no more room to build more roads. Critics say this system is an attack on privacy: a computer will know where and when you’ve driven, although the company that implements the system guarantees that this information won’t be stored once translated into money. The system starts in 2011 for freight transport and will be expanded to include cars in 2012. Full deployment of the system is scheduled to be completed in 2016. A similar system has been under study in the UK.

Source: Qué!, Motor Authority

A research group in Europe has taken a major step towards the goal of developing printable electronics that can be used for creating RFID tags. Researchers in the EU-funded CONTACT project have demonstrated that with suitable inks and printers, organic liquid crystal displays and other optical electronic devices can be printed out precisely.

The project researchers hope to follow this proof-of-principle by developing a gravure printing press, called Labratester 2. The press will be able to print hundreds of thousands of organic thin film transistor arrays or other devices precisely and efficiently.

The end goal of the project is to establish the ability to print electronic components directly onto organic materials such as paper, fabrics, or plastic. This would allow the quick and relatively cheap printing of RFID tags, as well as everyday devices such as flexible watch displays, and could eventually lead to applications from the realm of science fiction, like electronic paper or eyeglasses with embedded displays.

Participants in the CONTACT project include Switzerland-based Schläefli Machines, the Technical University of Ilmenau, Belgium’s IMEC, and Imperial College London.

Source: RFID News

Selective Availability

The most relevant factor for the inaccuracy of the GPS system is no longer an issue. On May 2, 2000 5:05 am (MEZ) the so-called selective availability (SA) was turned off. Selective availability is an artificial falsification of the time in the L1 signal transmitted by the satellite. For civil GPS receivers that leads to a less accurate position determination (fluctuation of about 50 m during a few minutes). Additionally the ephemeris data are transmitted with lower accuracy, meaning that the transmitted satellite positions do not comply with the actual positions. In this way an inaccuracy of the position of 50 – 150 m can be achieved for several hours. While in times of selective availability the position determination with civil receivers had an accuracy of approximately 10 m, nowadays 20 m or even less is usual. Especially the determination of heights has improved considerably from the deactivation of SA (having been more or less useless before).

The reasons for SA were safety concerns. For example terrorists should not be provided with the possibility of locating important buildings with homemade remote control weapons. Paradoxically, during the first gulf war in 1990, SA had to be deactivated partially, as not enough military receivers were available for the American troops. 10000 civil receivers were acquired (Magellan and Trimble instruments), making a very precise orientation possible in a desert with no landmarks.

Meanwhile SA is permanently deactivated due to the broad distribution and world wide use of the GPS system.

The following two graphs show the improvement of position determination after deactivation of SA. The edge length of the diagrams is 200 m, the data were collected on May 1, 2000 and May 3, 2000 over a period of 24 h each. While with SA 95 % of all points are located within a radius of 45 m, without SA 95 % of all points are within a radius of 6.3 m.

Plot of the position determination with and without SA
(Diagram from http://www.igeb.gov/sa/diagram.shtml (page no longer available)
With friendly permission of Dr. Milbert (NOAA))

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Following the hike madness in global fuel price, Gussmann Technologies is revealing their precious Fuel Consumption Management module in their AVLS/Fleet Management software. Some charts & consumptions reporting are told to be as additional features in current version of the application, ver3.2. They also developed special fuel flowmeter & level sensor for this purpose.

Gussmann Technologies website, G1 web application

IPICO Inc. and McMaster RFID Applications Laboratory have been awarded a $1.2 million (Canadian dollars) grant to create an RFID system that would capture and analyze data related to traffic use and capacity, without a corresponding increase in investment in road infrastructure. The technology also could be used to help manage traffic, reducing road delays and transit time, and then reduce both emissions and dependency on fossil fuels.

The grant was from the International Science and Technology Partnerships Canada Inc. and the Global Innovation & Technology Alliance. McMaster and IPICO will work with the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and Strategic Consultants, both of New Delhi, India.

The consortium had submitted a proposal to develop and create a platform for a specially designed passive commercial RFID transponder that would be capable of carrying significant, safe, secure and accurate information pertaining to the vehicle itself, including its identity. This information collected would be used to manage transportation flows on highways and roads.

Source: RFID News