I-Corps: Asset Tracking using Bluetooth Beacons

这个I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力涉及大规模的资产标记——监控和跟踪组织的物理资产。可能受到影响的领域包括配送中心、制造和装配设施、港口和车队。该项目能够收集有关资产的地理位置信息，为数据分析、生产力和移动优化提供机会。关注这些和其他应用程序将导致更快的运输时间，更低的燃料消耗，并增加产品的可追溯性。例如，在港口，该项目的具体影响可能包括跟踪多式联运底盘（即用于移动集装箱的轮式框架），解决底盘短缺和底盘存储困境等经典问题，从而加快产品移动和运输时间。此外，跟踪港口的多式联运集装箱可能会提供三维维度，整个堆叠的集装箱集合以及彼此相邻的集装箱集合。因此，减少了多式联运集装箱的搜索时间，从而提高了港口的集装箱吞吐量。I-Corps项目采用了一种新颖的低成本通信技术配置，包括蓝牙、GPS和蜂窝模块，以支持快速、经济高效的资产跟踪，并结合使用复杂算法的软件。这些技术的组合产生实时的直接结果，包括使用简单用户界面的快速部署响应。竞争系统通常需要设施范围内的永久性基础设施来支持部署，这可能导致漫长的安装时间和非常高的运营成本。为I-Corps项目开发的系统大大减少了必要的基础设施数量，任何规模的设施都可以在不到一天的时间内安装完毕。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project involves large scale asset tagging -- to monitor and track an organization's physical assets. Potential areas that could be impacted include distribution centers, manufacturing and assembly facilities, ports, and vehicle fleets. This project enables geo-location information to be collected about assets, providing opportunities for data analysis and productivity and movement optimization. A focus on these and other applications will result in faster shipping times, lower fuel consumption, and increased traceability of products. At ports, for example, a specific impact of the project may include tracking of intermodal chassis (i.e., the wheeled frames used for moving shipping containers), addressing classic problems such as chassis shortages and chassis storage dilemmas, thus enabling faster product movement and shipping times. Additionally, tracking intermodal containers at ports may present opportunities to dimension, in 3-D, entire collections of stacked containers as well as those placed adjacent to each other. As a result, intermodal container search-time is decreased enabling higher container throughput at the port.This I-Corps Project utilizes a novel configuration of low-cost communications technologies, including Bluetooth, GPS, and cellular modules, to support rapid and cost-effective asset tracking coupled with software utilizing complex algorithms. The combination of these technologies yields real-time direct results including rapid deployment response with a simple user interface. Competing systems often require facility-wide, permanent infrastructure to support deployment that can result in lengthy installation times coupled with very high operating costs. The system developed for this I-Corps project significantly reduces the amount of infrastructure necessary and can be installed in less than one day for any size facility.