Machine or group of machines for monitoring location of a vehicle or freight carried by a vehicle

• US 10,229,381 B1
• Filed: 09/25/2017
• Issued: 03/12/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 03/26/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Macropoint LLC (The Descartes Systems Group Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Macropoint LLC (The Descartes Systems Group Incorporated)
• Inventors: Adelson, Bennett H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Rushing, Mark S
• Application Number:
  US15/714,764
• Time in Patent Office: 533 Days
• Field of Search: 340988-994
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/13 Receivers
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/46 the supplementary measurement being of a radio-wave signal type
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/08 Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0833 Tracking
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/13 the indicator being in the form of a map
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/20 Monitoring the location of vehicles belonging to a group, e.g. fleet of vehicles, countable or determined number of vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/205 Indicating the location of the monitored vehicles as destination, e.g. accidents, stolen, rental

Abstract

A machine or group of machines for monitoring location of at least one of a vehicle or freight carried by the vehicle includes a server comprising a central processing unit, a memory, a clock, and a server communication transceiver that receives location information of a mobile device, the mobile device comprising a GPS receiver, a microprocessor and a wireless communication transceiver coupled to the GPS receiver, the mobile device comprising the GPS receiver programmed to receive data sent by a plurality of GPS satellites, calculate location information of the mobile device comprising the GPS receiver and transmit the location information.

Claims

1. A machine or group of machines system for monitoring location of a vehicle or freight carried by the vehicle, the system comprising:

a communications interface configured to receive a request for the location of the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle from a first device;

a data store operably coupled to the communications interface and configured to correlate a communications device to the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle;

a processor operably coupled to the communications interface and the data store and configured to validate that a user of the communications device provided consent to obtaining the location information of the communications device;

the communications interface further configured to transmit a request for the location information of the communications device to a location information provider and to receive the location information of the communications device from the location information provider;

the processor configured to correlate the location information of the communications device to the location of the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle; and

the communications interface further configured to transmit the location of the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle to the first device or a second device.

2. The machine or machines of claim 1, wherein the location information of the communications device is originally obtained using a method that does not require a global position system (GPS) satellite receiver to form part of the communications device.

3. The machine or machines of claim 1, wherein the location information of the communications device is originally obtained using a technique utilizing a global position system (GPS) satellite receiver that forms part of the communications device.

4. The machine or machines of claim 1, wherein the location information of the communications device is originally obtained through techniques including at least one:

triangulation between radio towers,

obtaining a range of locations corresponding to a transmission range of a single radio tower,

advance forward link trilateration (AFLT),

observed time difference (OTD), and

Cell-ID (CID).

5. The machine or machines of claim 1, wherein the communications interface is configured to receive the location information of the communications device from one or more of:

a wireless service provider providing wireless service to the communications device, and

a third party obtaining the location information from the wireless service provider providing wireless service to the communications device.

6. The machine or machines of claim 1, wherein the data store is configured to correlate the communications device to the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle based at least in part on the communications device being associated with a user of the communications device who is also associated with the vehicle and the processor is configured to correlate the location information of the communications device to the location of the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle based at least in part on the correlations stored in the data store.

7. The machine or machines of claim 1, wherein

the processor is configured to correlate the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle to the communications device by correlating a vehicle reference number or a freight reference number, respectively, to the communications device, and

the communications device is configured to transmit the request for location information of the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle to the location information provider including the vehicle reference number or the freight reference number.

8. The machine or machines of claim 1, wherein the processor validates that the user of the communications device provided consent to obtaining the location information of the communications device by determining that the communications interface received the location information of the communications device from the location information provider.

9. The machine or machines of claim 1, wherein the communication device transmits the location of the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle to one or more of:

a freight service provider,

a party to whom the freight service provider provides freight services, and

a party that provides location information services to the freight service provider or to the party to whom the freight service provider provides freight services.

10. The machine or machines of claim 1, wherein the communications device is configured to cause display of a visual representation of the location of the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle.

11. A method for a machine or group of machines system to monitor location of a vehicle or freight carried by the vehicle, the system comprising:

receiving a request for the location of the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle from a first device;

correlating a communications device to the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle;

validating that a user of the communications device provided consent to obtaining the location information of the communications device;

transmitting a request for the location information of the communications device to a location information provider corresponding to party or device different from the communications device;

receiving the location information of the communications device from the location information provider;

correlating the location information of the communications device to the location of the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle; and

transmitting the location of the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle to the first device or a second device.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the location information of the communications device is originally obtained using a method that does not require a global position system (GPS) satellite receiver to form part of the communications device.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the location information of the communications device is originally obtained using a technique utilizing a global position system (GPS) satellite receiver that forms part of the communications device.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the location information of the communications device is originally obtained through techniques including at least one:

triangulation between radio towers,

obtaining a range of locations corresponding to a transmission range of a single radio tower,

advance forward link trilateration (AFLT),

observed time difference (OTD), and

Cell-ID (CID).

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the location information of the communications device is received from one or more of:

a wireless service provider providing wireless service to the communications device, and

a third party obtaining the location information from the wireless service provider providing wireless service to the communications device.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein the correlating the communications device to the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle includes correlating the communications device to the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle based at least in part on the communications device being associated with a user of the communications device who is also associated with the vehicle and the correlating the location information of the communications device to the location of the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle includes correlating the location information of the communications device to the location of the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle based at least in part on the correlating the communications device to the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein

the correlating the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle to the communications device includes correlating a vehicle reference number or a freight reference number, respectively, to the communications device, and

the transmitting the request for location information of the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle to the location information provider includes transmitting the vehicle reference number or the freight reference number.

18. The method of claim 11, wherein the validating that the user of the communications device provided consent to obtaining the location information of the communications device includes determining that the communications interface received the location information of the communications device from the location information provider.

19. The method of claim 11, wherein the transmitting the location of the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle includes transmitting the location of the vehicle or the freight carried to one or more of:

a freight service provider,

a party to whom the freight service provider provides freight services, and

a party that provides location information services to the freight service provider or to the party to whom the freight service provider provides freight services.

20. The method of claim 11, wherein the transmitting the location of the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle is configured to cause display of a visual representation of the location of the vehicle or the freight carried by the vehicle.