Wireless control for creation of, and command response to, standard freight shipment messages

• US 8,855,626 B2
• Filed: 04/19/2010
• Issued: 10/07/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/24/2003
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Startrak Information Technologies LLC (ORBCOMM Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Startrak Information Technologies LLC (ORBCOMM Incorporated)
• Inventors: O'Toole, Arthur J., Robinson, Thomas A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Kincaid, Lester
• Assistant Examiner(s): Gu, Andy
• Application Number:
  US12/763,188
• Publication Number:
  US 20100321179A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,632 Days
• Field of Search: 455/425
• US Class Current: 455/425
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/08 Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/009 Signalling of the alarm condition to a substation whose identity is signalled to a central station, e.g. relaying alarm signals in order to extend communication range
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/14 Central alarm receiver or annunciator arrangements

Abstract

A freight management arrangement includes a monitor system that communicates over wireless with a large number of freight assets by land and with smaller number of users each associated with a fleet of the freight assets. The monitor system polls sensed ambient data in the freight assets on the basis of requests from the users. The requests may be stored as data in the monitor system or occur on a real-time basis.

Claims

1. A centralized freight asset monitoring system comprising:

a first receiver comprising an interface that inputs communication signals, the receiver receiving in real time a plurality of wireless messages, in a plurality of differing first formats that are not an industry standard freight message format and are encoded particularly for bandwidth restrictions of wireless communication links over which the wireless messages are sent, from a plurality of intelligent electronic devices associated with a plurality of freight assets, the wireless messages containing information of a monitored event or condition of the respective freight asset, wherein the receiver stores the information in a memory that holds a database of the wireless monitoring system;

a translator of the wireless monitoring system that translates in real time, utilizing a processor, the received wireless messages based upon the receipt in the respective first format into a message in a second format that is an industry standard freight message format used in an information system of a user of the freight asset;

a transmitter comprising an interface over which the messages in the second format are transmitted for delivery into the user information system based upon the translation;

a second receiver comprising an interface via which a message is received from the user containing a first command message to change a condition of a first freight asset associated with a first of the intelligent electronic devices and a second command message to change a condition of second freight asset associated with a second of the intelligent electronic devices; and

a second transmitter comprising an interface that;

responsive to receiving the first command message from the user, transmits, over the interface, the first command message to the first intelligent electronic device in the respective first format associated with the first intelligent electronic device; and

responsive to receiving the second command message from the user, transmits, over the interface, the second command message to the second intelligent electronic device in the respective first format associated with the second intelligent electronic device that differs from the first format associated with the first intelligent electronic device.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a database that stores information of the user and the freight asset in a memory of the system, and associates the user with the freight asset.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the database stores information of events or conditions pertaining to the freight assets, and associates those events and conditions with corresponding ones of the freight assets to which they pertain.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the events or conditions relate to at least one of actual temperature, set point temperature, location, speed, direction of movement, vibration, load, humidity, ambient gas, illumination, radiation, time of arrival at or departure from a specified location, door position, or presence of auxiliary equipment, of the freight assets.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a plurality of transmitter elements that send messages to a plurality of intelligent electronic devices over multiple communication networks, and a plurality of receiver elements that receive messages from the plurality of intelligent electronic devices over multiple communication networks.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the communication networks include satellite, cellular, microwave, laser, and radio frequency types of networks.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein:

the system provides freight monitoring services to a plurality of users; and

for each of the users, the system provides monitoring services for a plurality of freight assets.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein a plurality of messages are communicated simultaneously to and from the system using multiplexing.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the industry standard freight message format is one of Electronic Data Exchange (EDI) format and Extensible Mark-up Language (XML) format.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the freight asset is at least one of a freight car, a motor truck, a freight carried by a motor truck, a freight carried by a freight car, a temperature of freight carried, or a weight of freight carried.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is utilized for:

comparing contents of the first command message from the user to contents of a freight message from the first intelligent electronic device;

determining if an exception condition exists based on the comparing; and

responding to the first intelligent electronic device if the exception condition exists.