Trailer Tracking via Edge-Based Vehicle Number Replacement
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional trailer tracking systems require RFID readers and tags, limiting their application and necessitating hardware additions or modifications when defects occur, and fail to manage trailers without these components or during communication abnormalities.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle tracking system that uses a sensor system to detect trailers, provides tentative vehicle numbers and positional information, and employs edge computing to replace these with actual vehicle numbers and coordinates, allowing identification without adding hardware, even during system abnormalities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If RFID readers and tags are mounted in tractors and trailers to enable tracking, then vehicle identification capability is improved, but device complexity and hardware modification requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the RFID hardware system with a camera-based optical recognition system. The camera captures images of vehicles, and character recognition algorithms extract identification information from these images, eliminating the need for RFID readers, tags, and associated hardware modifications to vehicles.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of using physical RFID tags mounted on vehicles, the system creates visual copies (images) of vehicle identification markers and recognizes characters from these images. This allows identification without physical hardware attachments to the vehicles themselves.
2Measurement precision
If RFID tags are required in trailers for tracking, then tracking accuracy is improved, but adaptability to vehicles without tags decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The camera-based system serves multiple functions: it captures vehicle images for identification, tracks vehicle positions, and monitors vehicle movements. This single system works with all vehicles in the facility without requiring specific equipment on each vehicle, providing universal applicability while maintaining tracking capability.
3Speed
If RFID communication systems are used for tracking, then real-time monitoring is improved, but system vulnerability to communication abnormalities increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces character recognition algorithms as an intermediary between image capture and vehicle identification. The system captures images of vehicles, uses recognition algorithms to extract identification characters from these images, and then tracks vehicles based on this recognized information, providing a robust intermediate processing step that enhances reliability.
4Reliability
If hardware modifications are made to trailers for tracking, then tracking functionality is improved, but ease of operation and deployment decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses existing visual features on vehicles (identification markers, characters, or patterns) that are already present on vehicles for operational purposes. The camera-based system automatically captures and recognizes these existing features without requiring any modifications to the vehicles, allowing the tracking system to serve itself using already-available visual information.
Data Source
AI summary
The vehicle tracking system includes a vehicle tracking sensor system that provides a tentative vehicle number to a vehicle detected by a sensor and outputs a signal including the tentative vehicle number, absolute-coordinate-system positional information of the detected vehicle, and edge computing that replaces the tentative vehicle number by a vehicle number outputted from a vehicle number management PC, when the vehicle completes parking.