RFID Helps Yard Operators Find Crashed Cars

In addition, as the driver moves through the aisles of vehicles on his way to pick up a specific car, the RFID reader on the truck captures the ID number encoded to each vehicle, and its location is determined based on the rate at which a responding tag's signal is received by each of the four antennas. The GPS unit determines the loader's location (longitude and latitude) at the time of that read, and the PC transmits that information to the back-end system via a Wi-Fi 802.11 connection. If there is no Wi-Fi connection at that portion of the yard, the system stores the data until it comes within range of a Wi-Fi access point.

The DogBone software then verifies each tagged vehicle's location. If a car is no longer in the space it had previously inhabited, DogBone updates that data to the company's inventory-management software. This provides up-to-date confirmation regarding the location of every vehicle that the loader has passed, ensuring that none have been moved without that action being recorded in the back-end system, and also confirming that the location previously assigned to each vehicle is correct.

In Barodge's office, a computer screen can also display a map (known as the "geo grid") indicating the salvage yard's different zones. These include storage areas in which cars are stored, drop zones in which vehicles are initially placed when they arrive and await storage, and the sales lots in which they are auctioned. The system automatically updates a vehicle's status, based on the zone in which it has been placed. For example, if a car is located in a sales lot, the system knows it is now prepared to be sold.

Alli-Solutions expects the technology to have a use case in other industries beyond automobile auction lots, such as rental car agencies or container yards. Because the handheld device comes equipped with a camera, users can take a picture of the vehicle or shipping container they are handling—to document damage they have sustained, for instance, thereby offering proof of when that damage was first noticed.

The system's cost, McNeely says, is based on the amount of inventory being tracked and the quantity of vehicle tags required, as well as loader readers and related hardware.

Since installing the system, Barodge reports that it has reduced the number of loaders it needed from three to two, based on the improved efficiency, and the system has also eliminated mistakes. "Barodge's operation is 50 percent more efficient," McNeely states. The company is also utilizing the system to analyze inefficiencies or safety issues, such as the amount of time specific loaders may spend with or without a load (based on whether an RFID tag is read by the onboard reader), the amount of idling time (based on GPS data showing the loader's movement) and how fast the loaders travel in the yard (also based on the GPS data).

The system could also be used in other applications, such as tracking the locations of vehicles on the lot of a rental-car company.