The partners behind a €2m EU-funded project to develop a container tracking and monitoring system, are promising a failsafe device capable of detecting low-level radiation, VOCs, etc, just as soon as any such material is placed inside the container.
ISOTRACK sends a message from the box
Technical details are not being revealed so far, but the partners behind ISOTRACK, an €2m EU-funded project to develop a container tracking and monitoring system, are promising a failsafe device capable of detecting low-level radiation, VOCs, etc., just as soon as any such material is placed inside the container.
A prototype of the device, which is designed to be integrated into the container, tamper-proof, capable of low-cost retrofitting and with very long battery life, will be ready in October and a working model will follow in April 2011, says Dougie Bryce, exploitation manager for the consortium and a director of timber shipping group TTS.
ISOTRACK developed from TTS’s initial concept simply to track containers. The company got into discussions with innovation and technology R&D company PERA ISRI – both are based in Melton Mowbray – and the consortium went live in November 2008 with FP7 grant funding from Europe. Other partners include Lloyd’s Register, Astrata, Bluetraker and Finnish line Containerships.
“The benefits offered by our system would far outweigh the current ‘static scanning’ currently being promoted along the US border. To be frank, by that stage it’s too late – the device is on US soil,” says Mr Bryce.
A shipping container fitted with an ISOTRACK “box” would communicate to the outside world as well as between containers and also between containers and port-side operator. The device would integrate target-specific sensors and automatically detect low-level radiation as well as motion, heat, hazardous chemical.
The key difference, says Mr Bryce, is that such materials would be detected as soon as they were loaded, at source. The device would report this and also any tampering or removal/alteration of box contents, immediately, via GPS, GPRS or Iridium satellites. Beyond the security objectives, the system – being RF and X-ray permeable – could be developed for commercial benefit, including instant manifesting as tagged goods were inserted or removed.
