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

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

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

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

Driving a getaway car just got a little tougher. As if high-speed patrol cars, helicopters, and tire spikes weren’t enough, soon the fuzz might come armed with a laser-sighted, double-barreled homing-device launcher. The gizmo, called the StarChase Pursuit Management System, fires sticky GPS transmitters from compressed-air cannons mounted in the front grill of a police cruiser. A backlit control panel allows officers to arm the capsule and launch it at their target; once the projectile is attached to the fleeing vehicle, it starts feeding real-time location data to police HQ over a cellular network. This lets cops fall back and tail the suspect covertly, avoiding dangerous chases. “It has real James Bond appeal,” says sergeant Dan Gomez with the LAPD’s Tactical Technology Unit. The system is still in the testing phase, but the LAPD says it will be on the streets by early 2008. It could spell the end of high-speed pursuits — and put a lot of news helicopter pilots out of work.

CAPTOR is a leading Malaysia company in car-theft recovery business. View some of the success stories about this company:

• Success Stories
• Corporate website

Vehicle Tracking System that rely 100% on GPRS sometimes will have this problem. The tracking device is functioning with GPS module exactly calculate the location. It keep on reporting to the central server for every single minute. The owner of the car or vehicle simply can watch their car moving on the web-based map on his or her PC. Suddenly, his or her car simply disappears on the map. Is the car just vanished into the air? He/She call the provider, regarding the lost. The operator pick up the call, and check the status of the car using SMS directly to the tracking device. He got text-based reply with car location and engine status.

The car maybe still drove by authorized driver on have been carjacked. How to solve this mystery?

The answer is: poor GPRS coverage. Hahahaha. Let’s the telco step forward to be blamed. The owner still not satisfying about this. So, he/she decides to stop subscribing the service. Again, the telco frees without blames and upgrading their system. The AVL provider is always lose. Maybe, we should do something about this.

One of our products is AVLS, Automatic Vehicle Locating System that make use of GPS and GPRS technologies as the main methods to locate and gather data into our main server before displays it as a dot in a web-based map that can be accessed by our customers anyway thru the internet. A part of our customers will use it as a Fleet Management tool. We also experiences some poor data gathering which is sometimes maybe result by poor GPRS coverage, invalid GPS data & also by bad vehicle wirings.

I’ve a short conversation this morning regarding to invalid GPS data or poor data retrieval from units that have been installed into VIP cars. I didn’t get a clear picture about type of car or the maker. Our field technicians told that it’s because of tinted-windshield. Sounds reasonable to me anyway.

The VIP cars, for sure should be a luxury car, got it windshields tinted and some of it have embedded radio antenna built into it.

Let’s talk just a little bit about how GPS works. Think of your GPS receiver as a little FM radio. The GPS satellites send signals that your GPS receiver can listen to. In fact, the frequency that GPS signals are broadcast over are on a frequency simlar to that of FM radio (1200 MHz and 1500 MHz areas). Anything that might disturb good reception over FM radio can also cause signal issues for GPS receivers.

It turns out that both of our readers were in vehicles where the FM antenna was built into the windshield. In one case the car was new to the reader and thus they didn’t notice that the poor reception had started when they started driving the newer vehicle. In the other case the driver was finding that the GPS could only pickup a good signal when on either side of the dashboard; when it was in the middle it was under the FM antenna and they had a difficult time getting a solid GPS signal.

I’ve also heard sporadic reports that certain tinted windshields can interfere with GPS reception although I haven’t been able to see this happening with my own eyes. So the type of car you drive (or more specifically the type of windshield you have) can interfere with the GPS signal. If your vehicle has a windshield with an integrated FM antenna you might need to locate the GPS receiver away from where the FM antenna is located to get good reception. I even heard from one reader who said their FM radio would no longer work when they turned on the GPS.

LoJack Stolen Vehicle Recovery System is an aftermarket vehicle tracking system that allows vehicles to be tracked by police after being stolen. The manufacturer claims a 90% recovery rate. The name “LoJack” was coined to be the “antithesis of hijack”, meaning the theft of a vehicle through force. Today, LoJack’s core business comprises the tracking and recovery of cars, trucks, construction equipment, commercial vehicles and motorcycles. Additionally, LoJack is expanding into newer, emerging markets through licensing agreements and investments in areas such as cargo security. LoJack Corporation claims that over 200,000 vehicles have been recovered worldwide since the product was introduced more than two decades ago.

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