Fleet management portal for outdoor power equipment

• US 10,032,123 B2
• Filed: 03/08/2013
• Issued: 07/24/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 03/08/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Husqvarna AB (HUSQVARNA)
• Original Assignee: Husqvarna AB (HUSQVARNA)
• Inventors: Mejegard, Peter, Wahlstrom, Per, Holmberg, Stefan, Philpott, Gary, Wahlgren, Hakan
• Primary Examiner(s): Gills, Kurtis
• Application Number:
  US14/383,154
• Publication Number:
  US 20150058062A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,964 Days
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 40/08 related to drivers or passengers
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 40/09 Driving style or behaviour
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 50/14 Means for informing the driver, warning the driver or prompting a driver intervention
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/34 Route searching; Route guidance
• CPC Class Codes: G01D 21/00 Measuring or testing not otherwise provided for
• CPC Class Codes: G01M 99/00 Subject matter not provided for in other groups of this subclass
• CPC Class Codes: G01M 99/008 by doing functionality tests
• CPC Class Codes: G01P 3/00 Measuring linear or angular speed; Measuring differences of linear or angular speeds G01P5/00 - G01P11/00 take precedence; direction and speed indication G01P13/045; counting mechanisms G06M
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06312 Adjustment or analysis of established resource schedule, e.g. resource or task levelling, or dynamic rescheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06398 Performance of employee with respect to a job function
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0816 Indicating performance data, e.g. occurrence of a malfunction
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0841 Registering performance data recording measured values G01D; information storage G11B
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention are directed to a fleet management system that assists with management and monitoring fleets of powered machines and their operators, such as fleets engaged in landscaping, grounds care, and forestry service. In this regard, embodiments of the invention are directed to systems and methods for automatically gathering data about one or more pieces of outdoor power equipment and one or more human operators of the equipment, processing the data into more useful data and data formats, and providing useful feedback, data, and tools to users of the system via, for example, a web portal that either assists users with management of a fleet of equipment and operators or provides useful information to owner-operators of outdoor power equipment about their performance and their machines.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a piece of outdoor equipment including an equipment data sensor;

an identification unit worn by one of a plurality of operators; and

a data management server comprising;

a network interface configured to receive data, via a network, from a plurality of equipment data sensors including the equipment data sensor, each equipment data sensor being associated with one of a plurality of pieces of outdoor power equipment including the piece of outdoor equipment, wherein the data comprises information about each piece of outdoor power equipment and at least one operator identification (ID) code received from the identification unit, wherein the data is sampled by the equipment data sensor during operation of the piece of outdoor power equipment, wherein the information about the piece of outdoor power equipment comprises a position of a throttle valve, a geographic position of the piece of outdoor power equipment, RPM, oil temperature, oil pressure, or transmission temperature; and

a processing device configured to;

receive the data from the network interface;

associate the information about the piece of outdoor power equipment with a particular operator of the plurality of operators based on the operator ID code;

determine information about the particular operator associated with the operator identification code based on the information about the piece of outdoor power equipment and the operator identification code, wherein the information about the piece of outdoor equipment includes RPM information for the piece of outdoor equipment, wherein the information about the particular operator comprises estimated parameters for the particular operator including exposure to emissions, noise, or vibrations for the particular operator based on the RPM information for the piece of equipment;

provide, over the network a portal accessible by a client computing device, information about the piece of outdoor power equipment and information about the particular operator; and

electronically send alerts when exposure to emissions for the particular operator, exposure to noise for the particular operator, or exposure to vibrations for the particular operator reaches an associated benchmark.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing device is configured to use the information about the piece of outdoor power equipment and the information about the particular operator to present a graph, chart, notice, or warning to a user of the portal about the skill, experience, or performance of the particular operator.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing device is configured to present via the portal a summary of the pieces of outdoor power equipment associated with the particular operator and a summary of the plurality of operators.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the summary of the pieces of outdoor power equipment associated with the particular operator comprises images of the pieces of outdoor power equipment, and wherein the summary of the plurality of operators comprises images of the plurality of operators.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the portal comprises a workday summary for each operator of the plurality of operators showing which of the pieces of outdoor power equipment each operator used and information about one or more conditions of the pieces of outdoor power equipment while each operator was operating the pieces of outdoor power equipment.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the portal comprises an equipment summary for each of the pieces of outdoor power equipment showing which operator of the plurality of operators used the piece of outdoor power equipment and any maintenance or service alerts automatically generated by the processing device.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the portal comprises a system for allowing a user to register a plurality of identification units and associate each identification unit with a particular operator.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the portal comprises a dealer portal, a manufacturer portal, a service provider portal, a fleet manager portal, a retailer portal, and an operator portal.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the portal comprises information about exposure of each operator of the plurality of operators to vibration or noise during a period of work, the exposure calculated automatically by the processing device based at least partially on information about the piece of outdoor power equipment sensed by the equipment data sensor during operation of the piece of outdoor power equipment by each operator.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing device is further configured to display graphs of estimated parameters for the operator including graphs for exposure to emissions for the particular operator, for expose to noise for the particular operator, and for vibrations for the particular operator.

10. A method for monitoring the running of a piece of outdoor equipment comprising:

providing the piece of outdoor equipment with an equipment data sensor and a communication device including a memory and means for wireless communication,

receiving, by an equipment data sensor from an identification unit worn by an operator, an operator identification code,

obtaining, from the equipment data sensor, data comprising the operator identification code and values of at least one parameter associated with running of the piece of outdoor equipment, wherein said at least one parameter includes position of a throttle valve or a geographic position of the piece of outdoor equipment,

storing the data in said memory,

associating, by a processing device, the at least one parameter with a particular operator based on the operator identification code, the at least one parameter including RPM for the piece of outdoor equipment;

determining, by the processing device, information about the particular operator associated with the operator identification code based on the at least one parameter and the operator identification code, wherein the information about the particular operator comprises estimated parameters including exposure to emissions for the particular operator, noise for the particular operator, or vibrations for the particular operator,

connecting the communication device to a server for transmitting the information about the particular operator to said server,

displaying the information about the particular operator associated with running of the machine in the server or in a terminal connected to said server, and

electronically sending alerts when exposure to emissions for the particular operator, exposure to noise for the particular operator, or exposure to vibrations for the particular operator reaches an associated benchmark.

11. The method as claimed in claim 10 comprising the steps of:

providing an identification unit associated with a specific operator identification code to the operator of the piece of outdoor equipment, the identification unit being a separate entity from the piece of outdoor equipment,

communicating said operator identification code to the communication device, and

storing said operator identification code in said memory.

12. The method as claimed in claim 11, comprising:

providing the piece of outdoor equipment and/or operator with a GPS unit, and

communicating a geographic position of the operator and/or the piece of outdoor equipment to said server.

13. The method according to claim 12, further comprising:

evaluating the obtained geographic positions of the piece of outdoor equipment and/or the operator during a specific operating time for tracking the actual pathway of the piece of outdoor equipment/operator at an area where the operator was operating,

evaluating the area where the piece of outdoor equipment/operator was operating so as to determine an optimized route, and

comparing the actual pathway of the piece of outdoor equipment/operator to the optimized route for evaluating the efficiency of the actual pathway.

14. The method according to claim 12, comprising:

obtaining and storing at least the geographic positions and the engine speed of the piece of outdoor equipment during a specific operating time,

pairing registered geographic positions with the engine speed obtained and stored at each geographic position,

evaluating the paired data to determine, for each registered geographic position, whether a combustion engine/electric motor of the piece of outdoor equipment was in idle mode or in active operating mode, and

based on the evaluation, determining the total area at which the piece of outdoor equipment was in active operating mode during the operating time.

15. The method as claimed in claim 10, wherein the at least one parameter further includes at least one of oil temperature, oil pressure and transmission temperature.