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Chennai Container Yard Finds RFID Sharply Boosts Productivity
"A field trial was launched, during which we gained a number of insights," Sukhwal explains. "The RFID reader design has be made more robust to withstand the occasional shocks due to striking of the crane to nearby containers, and the antenna and power cables would have to be routed very carefully to avoid damage during crane operations.
According to Sukhwal, "the boot time of the system was also one to two minutes, and the crane operators would switch off their engines frequently. After turning them back on, they immediately started moving the containers, and the movements would be lost. So we had to provide the reader with back-up power from a dedicated battery bank, so it would switch off with the crane."
Each piece of hardware was custom-designed for the application. The ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID interrogator was designed based on SkyeTek's M9 module. Passive UHF tags, compliant with the EPC Gen 2 standard, were designed specifically for mounting on the metallic containers, but also had to be reusable with ease of deployment. The tags have a specially designed magnetic strip on the back, enabling the tag to stick to the container.
When a container arrives, it is weighed and its information is entered into the system. The tag is then associated with the container number and placed on the top of the container. At the stacking area, the tag data is appended with the GPS latitude and longitude information, and then transmitted to a central server database via GPRS. The container's location is then shown on a Web application.
Whenever a crane moves a container, the vehicle's RFID interrogator reads the container's tag, and its new location is automatically updated in the system without manual intervention. Once the container is ready for dispatch, the tags are removed at the exit gate, the tag is de-associated from the container number and it is ready to be used for another container.
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According to Sukhwal, "the boot time of the system was also one to two minutes, and the crane operators would switch off their engines frequently. After turning them back on, they immediately started moving the containers, and the movements would be lost. So we had to provide the reader with back-up power from a dedicated battery bank, so it would switch off with the crane."
Each piece of hardware was custom-designed for the application. The ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID interrogator was designed based on SkyeTek's M9 module. Passive UHF tags, compliant with the EPC Gen 2 standard, were designed specifically for mounting on the metallic containers, but also had to be reusable with ease of deployment. The tags have a specially designed magnetic strip on the back, enabling the tag to stick to the container.
When a container arrives, it is weighed and its information is entered into the system. The tag is then associated with the container number and placed on the top of the container. At the stacking area, the tag data is appended with the GPS latitude and longitude information, and then transmitted to a central server database via GPRS. The container's location is then shown on a Web application.
Whenever a crane moves a container, the vehicle's RFID interrogator reads the container's tag, and its new location is automatically updated in the system without manual intervention. Once the container is ready for dispatch, the tags are removed at the exit gate, the tag is de-associated from the container number and it is ready to be used for another container.
