Patent Application Number: 2005217624
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United States
Thanks for posting those four pieces of prior art. Great work.
Would you be able to amend these references to include URLs to the patent applications to make it easy for other reviewers to read the prior art you have submitted?
Ben
Thanks for the comment.
Now, I have included URLs for the references.
Please let me know if you have any other queries.
Regards,
Veera
There's an IBM product we're looking at as possible prior art called Secure Trade Lanes. Still in the process of talking to those knowledgeable to determine relevance ... stay tuned.
A rail car tracking system comprising: rail car location equipment mounted to a rail car, the equipment including a transmitter for transmitting rail car location data to a remote receiver and further including an electronically readable tag attached to the rail car for identifying the rail car to a wayside tag reader; and locomotive communication equipment mounted in a locomotive and adapted for communication with the rail car location equipment when the rail car and locomotive are coupled into a common train, the locomotive communication equipment being operative to identify the coupled rail car and including a transmitter for transmitting data to the remote receiver, the data including rail car data so that the required data transmission from the rail car transmission equipment is reduced.
Surely, this claim is anticipated by the prior art. Is anyone able to provide prior art?
The invention is a cost and power effective solution to the problem of rail car tracking within a rail transportation network.
The inventors say the invention is an improvement on:
- the location-reporting accuracy of existing AEI/RFID tag systems that are limited by the distance between wayside readers; and
- the power consumption of existing rail car tracking systems because it requires less power to operate (and thus allows for extended battery life) by utilising event-driven reporting (rather than periodic), reduced message lengths (containing only effectual data).
The problems with the existing technologies GE has identified are that radio frequency ID tags such as AEI tags are imprecise as they report the position of cars only when they pass certain points, and GPS systems provide detailed information but have an unacceptably low battery life.
The system generally includes rail car location/transceiver equipment forming a wireless message system mounted on a rail car. The rail car location/transceiver equipment may include a location determination device, such as a GPS receiver, a transceiver, a processor, and a memory for storing processor instructions. The rail car may also be equipped with a sensor suite for sensing operating conditions of the rail car, and a power source, such as a battery, for powering the sensor suite and the rail car location/transceiver equipment. The sensor suite may include sensors such as an accelerometer for detecting movement of the rail car, a temperature sensor, a pressure sensor, a door position sensor, a cargo identification sensor, and a cargo seal condition sensor. The rail car may also be equipped with an AEI tag to uniquely identify the car to a wayside AEI tag reader that the car passes. The AEI tag is preferably an active tag including a processor that allows the tag to read as well as being read and to communicate the results of the reading of external tags such as those on wayside markers or on other rail vehicles (rail cars and locomotives, for example) to the equipment so that the location of the external tags can be communicated to a remote rail system monitoring and tracking operation. This enables comparison of different AEI data for determining location of rail assets. The railcar may also sense attributes of the cargo contained within the railcar. For example, an RFID reader may be in communication with the processor for sensing RFID tagged cargo in the railcar.