Ground fleet operations quality management system

• US 9,202,318 B2
• Filed: 06/02/2015
• Issued: 12/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/25/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Appareo Systems LLC (AGCO Corporation), Intelligent Agricultural Solutions LLC
• Original Assignee: Appareo Systems LLC (AGCO Corporation)
• Inventors: Batcheller, David C., Weinmann, Robert V., Batcheller, Barry D., Halvorson, Jacob A., Johnson, Jeffrey L., Butts, Nicholas L., Tolstedt, Jonathan L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Shafi, Muhammad
• Application Number:
  US14/728,994
• Publication Number:
  US 20150269790A1
• Time in Patent Office: 182 Days
• Field of Search: 701/1, 701 3- 18, 701 23- 27, 701/35, 701/38, 701/44, 701400-541, 348/144, 348/143, 348/148, 348/145, 348/153, 348/159, 340/945, 340948-983, 342/2, 342/26.B, 342 29- 40, 342 60-158, 342/357.53
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/00 Instruments specially adapted for vehicles; Arrangement of instruments in or on vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/20 Output arrangements, i.e. from vehicle to user, associated with vehicle functions or specially adapted therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/085 using electronic data carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0866 the electronic data carrier being a digital video recorder in combination with video camera
• 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 5/0021 located in the aircraft
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0082 for monitoring traffic from a ground station radar or analogous systems specially adapted for traffic control G01S13/91
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks

Abstract

A ground fleet operations quality management system for use with one or more vehicles which includes a gateway module mounted on each vehicle, a centralized data server to collect, store and pre-process data from multiple vehicles, and a web application designed to provide access to and analysis of the conditions of the entire fleet of vehicles.

Claims

1. A vehicle behavior monitoring system, comprising:

a plurality of ground vehicles, each vehicle comprising an electronic gateway module and a vehicle display, wherein the gateway module is in communication with a subsystem of the vehicle and wherein the gateway module is in communication with the vehicle display;

a centralized server, wherein the centralized server is connected to the Internet;

a communications link, wherein the communications link allows the gateway module to exchange information with the centralized server;

a plurality of external applications, wherein the external applications are connected to and can exchange information with the centralized server;

whereby a condition of at least one vehicle of the plurality of ground vehicles can be communicated to the centralized server;

whereby the centralized server can collect and process the conditions collectively for the plurality of ground vehicles and make the collected and processed conditions available to the vehicle display through the gateway module;

whereby the centralized server can make the collected and processed conditions available to the plurality of external applications;

whereby the collected conditions can be analyzed by the fleet operations quality assurance application to identify when at least one of the plurality of ground vehicles has performed outside of a predefined range of expected behavior;

and the centralized server generates a report of said collected conditions;

wherein said collected conditions comprising;

grain quality conditions.

2. The vehicle behavior monitoring system of claim 1, wherein the centralized server is an Internet-based cloud server.

3. The vehicle behavior monitoring system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the plurality of external applications is a web application offering summary information on the plurality of ground vehicles.

4. The vehicle behavior monitoring system of claim 1, wherein the communications link is a wireless communications link.

5. The vehicle behavior monitoring system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of ground vehicles is a plurality of agricultural vehicles.

6. The vehicle behavior monitoring system of claim 1, wherein the condition of at least one vehicle of the plurality of ground vehicles is an environmental condition affecting the vehicle.

7. The vehicle behavior monitoring system of claim 1, wherein the condition of at least one vehicle of the plurality of ground vehicles is a condition of at least one subsystem of the at least one vehicle.

8. The vehicle behavior monitoring system of claim 1, wherein the condition of at least one vehicle of the plurality of ground vehicles is a condition of an implement attached to the at least one vehicle.

9. A vehicle behavior monitoring system for a ground vehicle, which system comprises:

an electronic gateway module mounted on the vehicle and in communication with a subsystem of the vehicle;

a vehicle display mounted on the vehicle and connected to the gateway module;

a centralized server configured for connection to the Internet;

a communications link between the gateway module and the centralized server and configured for exchanging information therebetween;

said system configured for communicating vehicle subsystem information to the centralized server via the gateway module; and

said centralized server configured for processing and transforming the vehicle subsystem information; and

the centralized server generates a report of said collected conditions;

wherein said collected conditions comprising;

grain quality conditions.

10. The vehicle behavior monitoring system of claim 9, which includes:

multiple said electronic gateway modules each configured for mounting on a respective vehicle in a fleet;

multiple vehicle displays each configured for mounting on a respective vehicle and connected to a respective gateway module; and

said centralized server configured for controlling and synchronizing the operation of said multiple vehicles.

11. A vehicle behavior monitoring method, comprising the steps of:

equipping each vehicle of a plurality of ground vehicles with an electronic gateway module and a vehicle display, wherein the gateway module is in communication with a subsystem of the vehicle and wherein the gateway module is in communication with the vehicle display;

collecting information on a condition of at least one vehicle of the plurality of vehicles in the gateway module of the at least one vehicle;

sending the information on the condition to a cloud-based centralized server on a wireless communication link;

collecting and processing the data using the centralized server; and

providing access to the collected and processed data to a plurality of external applications, wherein the external applications are connected to and can exchange information with the centralized server; and

generating with said centralized server a report of said collected conditions;

wherein said collected conditions comprising;

grain quality conditions.

12. The vehicle behavior monitoring method of claim 11, wherein the centralized server is an Internet-based cloud server.

13. The vehicle behavior monitoring method of claim 11, wherein at least one of the plurality of external applications is a web application offering summary information on the plurality of ground vehicles.

14. The vehicle behavior monitoring method of claim 11, wherein the plurality of ground vehicles is a plurality of agricultural vehicles.

15. The vehicle behavior monitoring method of claim 11, wherein the condition of at least one vehicle of the plurality of ground vehicles is an environmental condition affecting the vehicle.

16. The vehicle behavior monitoring method of claim 11, wherein the condition of at least one vehicle of the plurality of ground vehicles is a condition of at least one subsystem of the at least one vehicle.

17. The vehicle behavior monitoring method of claim 11, wherein the condition of at least one vehicle of the plurality of ground vehicles is a condition of an implement attached to the at least one vehicle.

18. A vehicle behavior monitoring method, comprising the steps of:

equipping each vehicle of a plurality of ground vehicles with an electronic gateway module and a vehicle display, wherein the gateway module is in communication with a subsystem of the vehicle and wherein the gateway module is in communication with the vehicle display;

collecting information on a condition of at least one vehicle of the plurality of vehicles in the gateway module of the at least one vehicle;

providing an Internet-based centralized server;

providing a wireless communications link via the cloud, wherein the communications link allows the gateway module to exchange information with the centralized server;

providing a communications link, wherein the communications link allows the gateway module to exchange information with the centralized server, wherein the centralized server is connected to the Internet;

sending the information on the vehicle condition to the centralized server;

collecting and processing the data using the centralized server;

providing access to the collected and processed data to an external application configured for exchanging information including an environmental condition affecting the vehicle with the centralized server;

said external application comprises a web application; and

providing summary information on the plurality of ground vehicles via the web application; and

generating with said centralized server a report of said collected conditions;

wherein said collected conditions comprising;

grain quality conditions.

19. The vehicle behavior monitoring method of claim 18, wherein the ground vehicles are agricultural vehicles each including an implement and the vehicle condition is a condition of the implement.