FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a method and a logger device for identifying if a logger device configured to be associated to an asset during a real time supply-chain monitoring, is onboard an aircraft.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

With the expansion and growth of global sourcing in a supply chain, more prevalent interest has been placed on automatic monitoring of time and of environment related parameters to increase food and drug safety and improve food defense systems throughout all areas of production, processing, storage and transportation and operations. Food and drug require proper handling of environment related parameters such as temperature during transport to assure shelf quality, longevity, and safety.

Logger devices are electronic monitoring devices commonly used for these purposes, namely, to be associated to assets such as food, beverages, or drugs to automatically monitor and record various environmental related parameters of the assets throughout a supply chain, such as temperature, humidity, acceleration, and air pressure, over time. A recent example of importance of such logger devices is the temperature monitoring of the CO VID-19 vaccines, which is a key critical monitoring parameter.

Many restrictions exist regarding the use and operations of logger devices onboard aircrafts. Logger devises capable of wireless transmission of data are commonly not allowed to be used onboard aircrafts unless certain permissions are present, but these include, obviously, the requirement that the logger devices are shut down or placed in a flight mode during flight.

Other types of logger devices where this is of no concern are logger devices that are not capable of wireless transmission, typically single use logger devices, and are therefore not capable of performing real time monitoring.

Logger devices used for real time monitoring have a wireless communication module to allow them to transmit position data of the logger devices together with measured environmental related data wirelessly and, in that way, enable a real time supply chain monitoring during the transport of the assets. The term real time may as an example be understood as transmitting this data every 1 hour. It can of course be more frequent or less frequent, depending e.g., on the transport means. This means that position data of the logger devices (and thus of the assets) together with measured environmental data such as the temperature of the assets are provided in real time, e.g. by said one hour interval. By doing so, it is possible to monitor the position and the environmental condition of the assets in real time. Thus, issues such as too high or low temperature of the assets may be identified before these issues escalate which allows for proactive actions.

Therefore, when such real time logger devices are used in aircrafts, they must as already mentioned be placed in a flight mode where they are capable of measuring and storing the environmental related data such as temperature but are not capable of transmitting any data during the flight. Putting logger device into flight mode is often a manual operation, where human failure can easily cause an operator forgets to put the logger device in flight mode prior to the flight.

Another drawback with prior art solutions is depicted in figure 1, which shows a prior art solution of an aircraft 105 carrying an asset with an associated logger device (not shown) leaving an origin location 101 and heading to a destination location 102.

Prior to takeoff, position data together with measured environmental data 104 is transmitted to an external data processing device 106 (which may be any type of a cloud platform), which gives a first data point (pl, ml) 107a where pl is the position data at the origin location 101 and ml is the measurement point at the origin location (this could as an example be the temperature of the asset at the origin location).

After arrival at a destination location 102, the logger device is either manually or automatically put in a higher-power mode where the logger device transmits all measured data 105 during the flight together with the position data at the destination location 102, resulting in a second data point (p2, m2) 107b, where p2 is the position data at the destination location and m2 is the measurement data during the flight.

The information the logger devices are provided with is namely the origin location and destination location, and it is even not uncommon that the transport route is not known in advance, i.e. whether the transport is via ship, vehicle, train or flight. When the asset and the logger device is transported with an aircraft, the position data for the asset in the time-period between the takeoff and landing is a “black box” but this timeperiod can be tens of hours which results in a zero data visibility in the position during the flight. When the asset is a very sensitive asset such as said COVID-19 vaccines or any other types of medicine, food, or beverages, a good data quality of the position of the aircraft is extremely important.

Such a lack of data visibility can have a severe impact. One possible scenario, as an example, is where due to unforeseen circumstances the aircraft has to change flight route due to e.g. weather conditions or motor failure, and has to do one (or more) stopover(s). Such unforeseen circumstances will not be visible towards the supplier (and the monitoring agency) of the asset because only the origin starting location and the destination location is known. This means that if the flight time changes from being e.g. 10 hours to e.g. 25 hours, or even several days, this time delay may be very critical and may result in that issues such as too high or low temperature of the asset will not be identified in due time.

Other scenario is where the flight is scheduled via several stop overs, but the fact that the flight information may not be known does result in that the only data that becomes available is at the origin location and at the destination location.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of embodiments of the invention to provide an improved method of determining if a logger device associated to an asset is onboard an aircraft or not. Another object of the present invention is to provide a real time position tracking of the logger device and thus the asset during the transport from an origin location to a destination location.

In general, the invention preferably seeks to mitigate, alleviate, or eliminate one or more of the above-mentioned disadvantages of the prior art singly or in any combination. In particular, it may be seen as an object of embodiments of the present invention to provide a method and a wireless logger device that solves the above-mentioned problems, or other problems.

To better address one or more of these concerns, in a first aspect of the invention a method is provided for identifying if a logger device configured to be associated to an asset during a real time supply-chain monitoring is onboard an aircraft. The method comprises: • receiving, by a receiver comprised in the logger device, an aviation related signal periodically transmitted by the aircraft,

• processing the received aviation related signal, the processing including determining signal strength of the received aviation related signal,

• comparing the determined signal strength with a pre-defined signal strength value, wherein if the signal strength of the received aviation related signal is above a pre-defined signal strength threshold, the logger device is determined to be onboard the aircraft, wherein the aviation related signal comprises data identifying the aircraft number and/or the aircraft unique ID, where prior to takeoff of the aircraft, at least the aircraft number and/or the aircraft ID is forwarded to an external control computer that utilizes the received data identifying the aircraft number and/or the aircraft unique ID to track the position of the aircraft after takeoff via communicating with an external flight tracking module.

Accordingly, a simple solution is provided for enabling identifying if the logger device is onboard the aircraft or not which may e.g. be a nearby vehicle.

Having such a real-time position tracking enables identifying issues before they escalate and thus allows for proactive actions. As an example, change of flight route due to unforeseen circumstances where the aircraft may have to make one or more stopovers will be visible in real-time.

As an example, some of the CO VID-19 vaccines must be kept at around -80°C during transport where dry ice is used to maintain it at this very low temperature but maintaining this very low temperature is only possible for a limited amount of time, until more dry ice must be added. Thus, having this real-time data visibility enables acting on such unforeseen circumstances and thus prevent the vaccine from being destroyed.

In one embodiment, the step of receiving and processing the aviation related signal is repeated two or more times, the step of determining if the logger device is onboard the aircraft being based on that the signal strength threshold is above the pre-defined signal strength threshold for the two or more measuring times. Accordingly, a more reliable determination is provided since it may be confirmed with high certainty that the logger device is not moving away from the aircraft in another vehicle or nearby aircraft such as a few minutes or hours later. The measuring times might be performed every 30 minutes, or every 1 hour, or with higher or lower frequency. In one embodiment, the aviation related signal comprises altitude data of the aircraft, the method further comprising:

• determining, based on the altitude data , whether the aircraft is at ground level, where in case the aircraft is determined to be at the ground level,

• enabling the logger device to transmit measured environmental related data measured by the logger device to an external control computer.

In one embodiment, the aviation related signal further comprises a velocity vector of the aircraft, the method further comprising:

• determining, based on the aviation related signal, whether the aircraft is at ground level,

• determining if a horizontal component of the velocity vector is below a pre-defined threshold limit, wherein in case the aircraft is determined to be at the ground level and the horizontal component of the velocity vector is below a pre-defined threshold limit,

• enabling the logger device to transmit measured environmental related data measured by the logger device to an external control computer.

It is thus possible to transmit environment related data of the asset, e.g. temperature, humidity, just before take-off and thus maximize the data resolution of the data tracking.

In one embodiment, the step of processing the received aviation related signal is performed by a processor comprised in the logger device. In another embodiment, the received aviation related signal is performed by a processor comprised in an external control computer such as said external control computer.

In an embodiment, the aviation related signal comprises an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) signal. Such a signal may contain two kinds of altitudes: barometric and geometric, where the barometric or pressure altitude is commonly the one pilots know best, where this is commonly the altitude that is displayed on the altimeter in the aircraft. Geometric altitude may be calculated by GPS (Global Positioning Satellites) as the height of the aircraft above the earth ellipsoid.

In an embodiment, if the signal strength of the received aviation related signal is above the pre-defined signal strength threshold the logger device is automatically turned to a low power mode, the low power mode being the power mode where no transmission is possible from the logger device. In an embodiment, after turning the logger device to a low power/airplane mode, the logger continues to register environment related parameters having a time-stamp, where the environment related parameter may be one or more of: temperature of the asset, humidity of the asset, light intensity around the asset, acceleration of the asset, pressure of the asset, etc. on a regular basis, e.g. every hour, and store this data. This allows improving the data accumulation during the flight. Other types of data that may also be stored and associated to the measured data from the data logger may include type of the aircraft, the country of registration of the aircraft, vertical speed of the aircraft, GPS altitude of the aircraft, wind speed at the aircraft, outside air temperature, latitude and/or longitude of the aircraft, ICAO 24-bit address. This additional data may be received/extracted from the aviation related signal, such as via the AD S B signal detected by the logger device during the flight.

Preferably, if the aircraft lands where there is cellular connection, this data may be associated to the tracked position data of the aircraft via the external flight tracking module. As an example, the position data may be 200 position points with e.g. a 10 min interval, where upon landing, the measured data such as the temperature that was measured during the flight with the time-stamp is associated to the position point where the measurement took place. Several air tracking modules exist, such as flightradar24.

The term supply-chain may according to the present invention be understood as several different processes or mechanisms that the asset undergoes during transport from an origin location until the destination location. This may include one or more carriers from one or more origins, from carriers to one or more aircrafts and/or ships, temporal storage in storage centers, split up of initial asset to several sub-assets, e.g. the asset may be products in a container and the sub-assets may be individual pallets, etc..

In an embodiment, the method further comprises detecting presence of a vibration of the logger device and thus of the asset, wherein if a detected vibration is detected above a pre-defined vibration reference value, this detection is further utilized as input in determining that the logger device is onboard the aircraft.

Thus, an even more reliable solution is provided to determine if the logger device and thus the asset is onboard the aircraft or not. In a second aspect of the invention, a logger device is provided. The logger device is configured to be associated to an asset during a real time supply-chain monitoring, comprising:

• a power source,

• a communication module comprising a receiver, and

• a processor for controlling the communication module, wherein the communication module comprises a receiver configured to receive an aviation related signal periodically transmitted by the aircraft prior to take-off of the aircraft, wherein the processor is configured to process the received aviation related signal to:

• determine signal strength of the received aviation related signal, and

• compare if the signal strength of the received aviation related signal is above a pre-defined signal strength threshold, where the logger device is determined to be onboard the aircraft if the signal strength is above the pre-defined singal strength threshold, wherein the aviation related signal comprises data identifying the aircraft number and/or the aircraft unique ID, where prior to takeoff of the aircraft, at least the aircraft number and/or the aircraft ID is forwarded to an external control computer by the communication module that utilizes the received data identifying the aircraft number and/or the aircraft unique ID to track the position of the aircraft after takeoff via communicating with an external flight tracking module.

In an embodiment, the logger device further comprises:

• at least one sensor for measuring environment related data of the asset, and

• a memory for storing the measured environment related data, wherein the aviation related signal comprises altitude data of the aircraft, and where the processor is further configured to determine, using the aviation related signal, whether the aircraft is at ground level. If the aircraft is determined to be at the ground level, the processor is configured to instruct the communication module to transmit stored environmental data to an external control computer. The aviation related signal may in one embodiment further comprise a velocity vector of the aircraft, where the processor may further be configured to:

• determine based on the aviation reltated signal whether the aircraft is at ground level, • determine if a horizontal component of the velocity vector is below a pre-defined velocity threshold limit, wherein in case the aircraft is determined to be at the ground level and the horizontal component of the velocity vector is below a pre-defined threshold limit, the processor is further configured to instruct the communication module to transmit measured environmental related data measured by the logger device to an external control computer.

In one embodiment, the communication module comprises a modem configured to communicate with cellular network such as 2G, 3G, 4G or 5G, and where the processor is configured to switch the modem from a low power mode to a high power mode and vice versa, the high power mode being where transmission of the measured environmental related data is possible, and the low power mode being where transmission of the measured environmental related data is not possible.

In an embodiment, the measured environment related data stored in the memory are associated with a time stamp, where after landing where the modem is switched to the high power mode, the stored environment related data is retroactively synced to tracked position data of the aircraft. Accordingly, as soon as the aircraft is landed the stored environmental related data may automatically synced to the position data.

In an embodiment, the step of switching the modem by the processor to the low power mode is triggered if the received aviation related signal is above the pre-defined signal strength threshold, and/or if the horizontal component of the velocity vector is above the predefined velocity threshold limit.

Accordingly, highly advanced logger device is provided that is capable of identifying if it is onboard an aircraft or not, and that is moreover capable of transmitting measured environmental related data just before takeoff of the aircraft. Moreover, the logger device allows real time position tracking via said external flight tracking module which allows the customer of the operator of the logger device to track the module. This improves the safety of the asset and enables identifying issues before they escalate and thus allows for proactive actions.

In general, the various aspects of the invention may be combined and coupled in any way possible within the scope of the invention. These and other aspects, features and/or advantages of the invention will be apparent from and elucidated with reference to the embodiments described hereinafter.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments of the invention will be described, by way of example only, with reference to the drawings, in which

Figure 1 depicts an exemplary scenario of a prior art solution for a logger device being an aircraft,

Figure 2 depicts an embodiment of a flowchart of a method according to the present invention for identifying if a logger device configured to be associated to an asset during a real time supply-chain monitoring is onboard an aircraft,

Figures 3 to 5 illustrate graphically the embodiment of the flowchart in figure 2, and Figure 6 depicts graphically the resolution of data points from where an aircraft takes off at an origin location until arrival at the destination location where the aircraft is landed.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

Figure 2 depicts a flowchart of a method according to the present invention for identifying if a logger device configured to be associated to an asset during a real time supplychain monitoring is onboard an aircraft. The asset may be, but is not limited to, any type of package, container, bag, tray, envelope, and the like containing medicine, food, or beverage. The monitoring may include, but is not limited to, monitoring the temperature, humidity, light intensity, acceleration of the asset or around the asset, where this monitoring data may be sent to an external computer with regular time interval, e.g. every hour, every 2 hours, once a day, or if the monitoring data is outside of a pre-defined monitoring window, e.g. above a predefined temperature threshold.

In step (SI) 201, an aviation related signal that is periodically transmitted by the aircraft is received by the logger device. The aviation related signal may in an embodiment be an Automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) signal.

In step (S2) 202, the aviation related signal is processed where the processing includes determining the signal strength of the received aviation related signal. In step (S3) 203, the signal strength is compared with a pre-defined signal strength value. If the signal strength is below the pre-defined signal strength, the logger device is determined to not be onboard the aircraft (S4) 204.

If the signal strength of the received aviation related signal is above a pre-defined signal strength threshold (S5) 205 the logger device is determined to be onboard the aircraft.

In an embodiment, the step of receiving and processing the aviation related signal is repeated two or more times, where the step of determining if the logger device is onboard the aircraft is based on that the signal strength threshold is above the pre-defined signal strength threshold for the two or more times. This may be done with several seconds interval or few minutes interval, just to make sure that the logger device is onboard the aircraft.

In step (S6) 206, the aviation related signal is further processed by means of extracting data comprised in the signal identifying the aircraft number and/or the aircraft unique ID.

In step (S7) 207, prior to takeoff of the aircraft, at least the aircraft number and/or the aircraft ID is forwarded to an external control computer that utilizes the received data identifying the aircraft number and/or the aircraft unique ID to track the position of the aircraft after takeoff via communicating with an external flight tracking module.

The flowchart in figure 2 is illustrated graphically in figures 3 to 5, where in figure 3 an aircraft 301 is shown at an airport standing still having an asset and a logger device 300 associated with the asset. The logger device comprises a processor 304, a power source 305 such as a rechargeable battery, at least one sensor 303 such as a temperature sensor, a memory 306 and a communication module 302.

The logger device is configured to monitor in real time the condition of the asset during transport so as to be able to act in real time if environmental related parameters such as the temperature are outside a pre-defined parameter window, e.g., outside a certain temperature interval. As an example, the environmental related parameter may be measured every 10 minutes and stored in the memory 306, where as an example once every hour the measured data may be transmitted by the communication module to an external control computer 308 via e.g. communication network such as 3G, 4G or 5G, together with the position of the logger device. In that way, it is possible to track the position of the asset together with the measured environment related parameter in real time.

The term real time monitoring may according to the present invention be understood as transmitting said data with a certain time interval, e.g. 1 every hour, every two hours, but this may depend on the communication quality, where in some situations there may be no communication network available.

Another example of utilizing such a logger device is where the processor compares the measured environment related parameter with the pre-stored reference value, where in case the measured value is outside the reference window, then this regular transmission frequency may not be followed, and the processor instructs the communication module to transmit a kind of an alert signal.

In the simple exemplary embodiment shown here, the aircraft receives position data, such as GPS data, from a navigation source such as satellite(s) 311. The aircraft transmits aviation related signal such as ADS-B signal that contains information such as this position data, flight number/ID, altitude, speed, acceleration, where the transmitted signal is received by e.g., an ADS-B tower 310 that relays the information to air traffic control 309 for precise tracking of the aircraft.

This exemplary embodiment may be understood as a flight tracking module and should not be construed as being limited to the embodiment shown here. The term flight tracking module may in more general terms be understood any kind of software, platform, services that are capable of tracking positions of aircrafts, preferably along with other flight details in real time.

The aviation related signal is also received by the communication module 302 of the logger device and communicated via the communication module to the external control computer 308 as shown in figure 4, that thus possesses amongst other information the flight information 320 including the flight data or flight ID for the aircraft.

Moreover, the logger device 300 is further configured to determine if the received signal strength of the aviation related signal transmitted by the aircraft 301 exceeds a pre-defined signal strength target 307. This may be done several times with a time interval. If the result shows that the signal strength is above this pre-defined signal strength target the logger device is determined to be onboard the aircraft and the communication module, which may comprise a modem, is turned to low flight mode by turning the modem off or into low power mode.

Figure 5 depicts where the logger device, or the communication module, is in flight mode meaning that no communication is present between the logger device and the external control computer 308, where instead a real time position tracking is present where the external control computer 308 tracks the position via the flight tracking module discussed previously. Figure 6 depicts graphically the resolution of the data points according to the present invention compared to the prior art scenario shown in figure 1, where the aircraft 105 leaves the origin location 101 until arrival at the destination location 102 where the aircraft is landed.

The position of the aircraft 105 is tracked by the control computer 308, which may e.g. include registering the position of the aircraft every x minutes until the aircraft lands at the destination location 102. For simplicity, assuming the measured environmental related parameter such as the temperature is performed every x minutes (e.g. every 10 minutes), upon arrival at the destination location the temperature measurements are transmitted to the control computer 308. The control computer has all necessary data to link the position data to the measurement data 609a-609i, in this simplified view, (pl,ml)=(position data at origin, measurement at origin), (p2,m2)=(position data after a first period of time, e.g. 10 min, measurement after 10 min), . . . . , (p9,m9)=(position data at the destination location, measurement at the destination).

This data resolution can of course be much more detailed, or less detailed, depending on preferences, but the advantages is that now it is possible to provide tracking data, where the position data of the aircraft is provided in real time during the flight, whereby the actual measurement data may subsequently be “synced” after arrival at the final destination.

While the invention has been illustrated and described in detail in the drawings and foregoing description, such illustration and description are to be considered illustrative or exemplary and not restrictive; the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments. Other variations to the disclosed embodiments can be understood and effected by those skilled in the art in practicing the claimed invention, from a study of the drawings, the disclosure, and the appended claims. In the claims, the word "comprising" does not exclude other elements or steps, and the indefinite article "a" or "an" does not exclude a plurality. The mere fact that certain measures are recited in mutually different dependent claims does not indicate that a combination of these measures cannot be used to advantage.