Methods and Systems for Integrating Environmental Data with Mobile Asset Tracking

• US 20070282560A1
• Filed: 05/29/2007
• Published: 12/06/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/30/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Horizon Marine, Inc., Resource Consortium Limited, LLC
• Original Assignee: Horizon Marine, Inc.
• Inventors: Anderson, Steven P.
• Granted Patent: US 7,440,848 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 702/127
• CPC Class Codes: G01W 1/00 Meteorology
• 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

Abstract

Systems and methods for integrating position reports from mobile assets with real time environmental data aggregated from various sources to build and continually update, in real time, an amalgamated database that contains the position information and collocated environmental parameters. The amalgamated database may be queried, and the extracted information may be processed for analysis and displayed or reported to a user.

Claims

1. A method for allowing a user to query a position of a mobile asset over time, along with environmental data associated with the position of the mobile asset, comprising:

receiving one or more position reports from the mobile asset, where each position report comprises at least a position of the mobile asset;

associating the mobile asset position with a timestamp;

receiving one or more environmental data reports from one or more data sources other than the mobile asset, where each environmental data report comprises at least one environmental data value and a location associated with the environmental data value;

associating the environmental data value with a timestamp;

correlating the position report with the environmental data report to create a correlated record;

storing the correlated record in an amalgamated database, where each record in the amalgamated database comprises at least the mobile asset position and the mobile asset timestamp; and

retrieving a record from the amalgamated database based on a user query.

2. The method of claim 1, where correlating the position report with the environmental data report comprises comparing the mobile asset position with the environmental data location.

3. The method of claim 1, where correlating the position report with the environmental data report comprises comparing the mobile asset timestamp with the environmental data timestamp.

4. The method of claim 1, where correlating the position report with the environmental data report comprises:

determining if the difference between the mobile asset position and the environmental data location is within a location range; and

determining if the difference between the mobile asset timestamp and the environmental data timestamp is within a time range.

5. The method of claim 4, where at least one of the location range and the time range is determined by the user.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the environmental data value, the associated timestamp, and the associated location in an environmental database.

7. The method of claim 6, where the environmental data location is a measurement site location and correlating the position report with the environmental data report comprises:

searching the environmental database for a measurement site location closest to the mobile asset position; and

using the closest measurement site location to search for an environmental data value having an associated timestamp closest to the mobile asset timestamp.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising determining if the difference between the measurement site location and the mobile asset position is within a location range.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising determining if the difference between the environmental data timestamp and the mobile asset timestamp is within a time range.

10. The method of claim 1, where the mobile asset position includes a longitude and a latitude, and the environmental data report comprises one or more temporally spaced sets of environmental data values, each environmental data value having an associated longitude and latitude.

11. The method of claim 10, where correlating the position report and the environmental data report comprises a two-dimensional interpolation by longitude and latitude of the environmental data report.

12. The method of claim 10, where correlating the position report and the environmental data report comprises a three-dimensional interpolation by time, longitude, and latitude of the environmental data report.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying at least the mobile asset position and the mobile asset timestamp from the amalgamated database record.

14. A method for allowing a user to query a position of a mobile asset over time, along with environmental data associated with the position of the mobile asset, comprising:

receiving one or more position reports from the mobile asset, where each position report comprises at least a position of the mobile asset;

associating the mobile asset position with a timestamp;

receiving one or more environmental data reports from one or more data sources other than the mobile asset, where each environmental data report comprises at least one environmental data value and a measurement site location associated with the environmental data value;

associating the environmental data value with a timestamp;

storing the environmental data value, the associated timestamp, and the measurement site location in an environmental database;

searching the environmental database for a measurement site location closest to the mobile asset position;

using the closest measurement site location to select, from the environmental database, an environmental data value having an associated timestamp closest to the mobile asset timestamp;

storing the selected environmental data value with the mobile asset report in an amalgamated database; and

retrieving a record from the amalgamated database based on a user query.

15. The method of claim 14, where the selected environmental data value is stored in the amalgamated database if the difference between the mobile asset position and the measurement site location is within a location range and the difference between the mobile asset timestamp and the environmental data timestamp is within a time range.

16. A method for allowing a user to query a position of a mobile asset over time, along with environmental data associated with the position of the mobile asset, comprising:

receiving one or more position reports from the mobile asset, where each position report comprises at least a longitude and latitude of the mobile asset;

associating the mobile asset longitude and latitude with a timestamp;

receiving one or more environmental data reports from one or more data sources other than the mobile asset, where each environmental data report comprises one or more temporally spaced sets of environmental data values, each environmental data value having an associated longitude and latitude;

associating the environmental data value with a timestamp;

storing the environmental data value, the associated timestamp, and the associated longitude and latitude in an environmental database;

extracting an environmental data value having a longitude and latitude closest to the mobile asset longitude and latitude from the environmental database;

storing the extracted environmental data value with the mobile asset report in an amalgamated database; and

retrieving a record from the amalgamated database based on a user query.

17. The method of claim 16, where a two-dimensional interpolation is used to extract an environmental data value having a longitude and latitude closest to the mobile asset longitude and latitude.

18. The method of claim 16, where an environmental data value having a longitude, latitude and timestamp closest to the mobile asset longitude, latitude and timestamp is extracted from the environmental database.

19. The method of claim 18, where a three-dimensional interpolation is used to extract an environmental data value having a longitude, latitude and timestamp closest to the mobile asset longitude, latitude and timestamp

20. A system for allowing a user to query a position of a mobile asset over time, along with environmental data associated with the position of the mobile asset, comprising:

means for receiving one or more position reports from the mobile asset, where each position report comprises at least a position of the mobile asset;

means for associating the mobile asset position with a timestamp;

means for receiving one or more environmental data reports from one or more data sources other than the mobile asset, where each environmental data report comprises at least one environmental data value and a location associated with the environmental data value;

means for associating the environmental data value with a timestamp;

means for correlating the position report with the environmental data report to create a correlated record;

means for storing the correlated record in an amalgamated database, where each record in the amalgamated database comprises at least the mobile asset position and the mobile asset timestamp; and

means for retrieving a record from the amalgamated database based on a user query.