Real-time alert mechanism for monitoring and controlling field assets via wireless and internet technologies

• US 20030009313A1
• Filed: 07/05/2001
• Published: 01/09/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 07/05/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Crane Payment Innovations, Inc. (Crane Company)
• Original Assignee: Isochron Data Corporation (Isochron Data Corp /Harris/)
• Inventors: May, James A., Cortes, Miguel A., Needel, William I.
• Granted Patent: US 6,925,335 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 702/188
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0742 in a data processing system embedded in a mobile device, e.g. mobile phones, handheld devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0748 in a remote unit communicating with a single-box computer node experiencing an error/fault remote testing G06F11/2294
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0769 Readable error formats, e.g. cross-platform generic formats, human understandable formats
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3013 where the computing system is an embedded system, i.e. a combination of hardware and software dedicated to perform a certain function in mobile devices, printers, automotive or aircraft systems testing or monitoring of control systems or parts thereof G05B23/02
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3055 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring the status of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring if the computing system is on, off, available, not available error or fault processing without redundancy G06F11/0703; error detection or correction by redundancy in data representation G06F11/08; error detection or correction by redundancy in operation G06F11/14; error detection or correction by redundancy in hardware G06F11/16
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3068 where the reporting involves data format conversion

Abstract

An apparatus and system are disclosed for the real-time monitoring and control of field assets. In particular, a monitoring device is disclosed that may be coupled to a field asset. The monitoring device may be designed as a stand-alone unit or it may be designed to leverage one or more technologies included in the field asset to determine the occurrence of one or more error conditions. The error conditions may be detected either as they occur or by testing the field asset at timed intervals. Upon detection of one or more error conditions, the monitoring device may initiate one or more corrective sequences to resolve the error condition. Alternatively, the monitoring device may notify a network operations center, via a wireless network, of the detected error condition. Users may access the network operations center via the Internet using a Internet-enabled remote device. From the Internet-enabled remote device, the user may view status information concerning one or more field assets. The user may also use the Internet-enabled remote device to instruct the network operations center to issue commands to be executed by the monitoring device coupled to the field asset such that the error conditions on the field asset may be corrected.

Claims

1. An apparatus for managing a field asset comprising:

at least one processor;

memory operably coupled to the at least one processor;

a communications interface operably coupled to the processor and the memory;

the communications interface operable to communicate with a controller board operably coupled to the field asset;

a program of instructions storable in the memory and executable in the processor;

the program of instructions operable to correct at least one field asset error condition and further operable to package uncorrected error conditions for transmission;

a wireless network interface operably coupled to the memory and the processor; and

the wireless network interface operable to transmit the packaged error conditions to a network operations center via a wireless network.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising the program of instructions operable to poll the controller board to determine whether an error condition exists on the field asset.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

the wireless network interface operable to receive commands from the network operations center transmitted via the wireless network; and

the commands operable to correct at least one uncorrected error condition on the field asset.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising the field asset including hardware operable to perform ice bagging and vending operations.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

the wireless network interface operable to receive at least one command from an Internet-enabled remote device; and

the at least one command operable to correct at least one uncorrected error condition existing on the field asset.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

at least one sensor operably coupled to the memory and the processor; and

the at least one sensor operable to evaluate at least one characteristic of the field asset.

7. A system for the Internet enabled management of a field asset comprising:

a field asset having a controller board operable to detect at least one error condition present on the field asset;

a monitoring device operably coupled to the field asset;

the monitoring device including a processor, memory operably coupled to the processor, a communications interface operably coupled to the processor, the memory and the controller board and a wireless network interface operably coupled to the memory and the processor;

the communications interface operable to communicate with the field asset and the wireless network interface operable to communicate with a wireless network;

a network operations center operably coupled to the wireless network; and

the network operations center operable to receive alerts indicative of error conditions existing on the field asset from the monitoring device and the network operations center further operable to display at least one entry indicative of an error condition existing on the field asset on an Internet-enabled remote device.

8. The system of claim 7 further comprising the network operations center operable to communicate one or more control functions to the field asset in response to selection by a user from the remote device.