Object of the invention

The scope of the present invention is a new system of electronic devices and a method that uses said system to prevent or limit loss of pallets as much as possible and to record other information concerning the way that the pallet has been subjected to. The invention achieves such object by using an RFT put on board every pallet and of other appropriate electronic pieces of equipment properly coordinated with each other.

Status of the art

Pallets are used to move products via product provisioning and storage chain. Pallets are often re-used for transporting goods that involve a plurality of storage terminals. In order to identify, track, and manage their own pallets, the owners of the pallets use systems composed of radio labels, called RFID, put on board the pallets, containing a serial number and other data suitable for identifying the owner of each individual pallet and a server used to track and manage the pallet handling. In particular, an invention is known and described in document EP 1,887,505 which refers to a pallet control and handling system in a circuit of users wherein every pallet is provided with digital identification means. Every user of the circuit is equipped with an identification means reader. Such reader is suitable for sending the identification data to a local unit installed at the user premises. Such local unit is connected to a central unit which collects and exchanges this data with the individual local units of the users.

Such known systems have a drawback in that they are not capable of identifying a specific owner of one or more pallets in a set of pallets of different owners, without checking, as it occurs now, the names of the owner of the individual pallets that make-up the set. Such drawback creates big troubles in warehouses because operators shall analyze all pallets present in the warehouses to identify one or more owners of the pallets and often are some pallets lost because, for instance, they are abandoned in areas of the warehouses different from those dedicated to storing the pallets. A solution of the drawbacks here illustrated is achieved by the system and by the method that are object of the present invention, which also makes it possible to obtain other advantages as described in the following paragraph.

Disclosure of the invention

The system of anti-loss devices for at least one pallet that is the object of the present invention comprises an RFID put on board a pallet.

The RFID includes a tag provided with: (i) a first non-updatable portion which contains a pallet identification number and the name of the pallet owner (ID); (ii) a second writable portion which includes, in an even alternative combined, manner, the names of the carrier and of the individual in charge with transportation as well as the names of the consigner and of the consignee. In one case there might be the name of the carrier and that of the individual in charge with transportation only, for instance the name of the driver of a truck charged by the carrier with the transportation of the pallet, be they devoid of goods or with goods. In another case the name of the pallets consignee might be added. In a further case there might be only the name of the consignee of the pallets on which the goods are present, consider for instance the case of companies that transport materials with means of transportation owned by themselves, and so on.

The presence of such information in the second portion of the tag makes it possible to easily and advantageously track the individuals responsible for the pallet and for the material located thereon. Think to a check made by Authorities to a means that transports the pallet according to the present invention. The Authority, by using an RFID reader, can advantageously check the name of the driver of the means of transportation, he/she being the individual charged with the transportation of the pallet, and check whether his/her name is present in the third central IT equipment, which will be illustrated in the following paragraphs.

The system according to the present invention also includes a first portable electronic equipment suitable for reading-writing the tag. Such first read-write equipment is provided with a wireless link, a memory, and an indicator sending an audible or visual signal, and with a second IT equipment, for instance a personal computer, suitable for collecting and sending data from and to the first electronic equipment and for collecting and sending data from and to a third central data handling IT equipment from and to at least one second IT equipment. The third electronic equipment can be a server or a similar equipment including, for explanatory purposes only, a "cloud".

This system of electronic equipment advantageously allows, first of all, to manage the handling of pallets and to prevent them from being it lost, being capable of associating the name of the owner of each individual pallet with the name of the holder thereof in every moment and of recording such association in the third centralized device.

The memory of the first electronic equipment is also capable of filing a pallet ID upon receiving this data item wirelessly from the second IT equipment. The memory of the first electronic equipment is equipped with electronic devices, for instance a software, suitable for activating the indicator which the first electronic equipment is provided with and activating it at a predetermined distance from the tag put on board the pallet containing the same ID stored in the memory of the first electronic equipment. The indicator is preset to gradually increase the intensity of the signal as the distance of the first electronic equipment from the mentioned tag decreases. In this way it will be possible to advantageously and quickly locate, for instance in a warehouse, the pallets having one and the same ID referred to one and the same owner. In one embodiment the pallet is provided with a device suitable for detecting and recording at least one data item concerning the environmental characteristics in which the pallet is and was. Such measurements and recordings are carried out by the electronic device on the basis of a predetermined measurement and recording program. Said data item can be read out by means of the first electronic equipment.

The presence of this electronic device on board a pallet makes it possible to know, for instance, at which temperature the pallet has been subjected and for how long time. Therefore the pallet consigner is in a position to know at which temperatures the pallet has been exposed and for how long time before reaching its destination point, consequently the consigner can know at which temperatures the goods placed on the pallet have been exposed and for how long time before reaching the destination point. The possibility for a consigner of knowing this data is particularly important in the case, for instance, of transportation of food products which might deteriorate because of the climatic conditions they have been subjected to: think to deep-frozen food products and the importance of keeping the cold chain during all transportation.

In another embodiment, a tridimensional GPS device is mounted on board the pallet and the second IT equipment is suitable for receiving the geolocalization signals of the tridimensional GPS device and lor representing them graphically, thus allowing an agile and quick localization of the pallet even if, for instance, it is on a shelf located up there with respect to ground.

The present invention also provides a method for tracking at least one pallet that uses the system according to the present invention as illustrated above and comprises the following operating step:

a first operating step whereby the pallet ID is read out by using the first electronic equipment that a pallet consigner is provided with; a second operating step whereby the ID is sent to the second IT equipment of the consigner, i.e. that who is sending the pallet;

a third operating step whereby the ID received during the second operating step of the method is associated with electronically encoded information contained, in an even alternative combined manner, the names of the carrier, of that charged with transportation, of the consigner, and of the consignee, thus obtaining altogether a set of electronically encoded information which is called loading code;

a fourth operating step whereby the loading code is written in the second portion of the pallet tag having the ID received by the second IT equipment of the consigner during the second operating step of the method;

a fifth operating step whereby the loading code is displayed on the first electronic equipment of the consigner and the correctness of the loading code displayed on said electronic equipment of the individual charged with transportation, is validated;

a sixth operating step whereby said loading code is sent to the third centralized IT equipment. In an ameliorative embodiment of the method according to the present invention, operating steps four and five of the method illustrated above are modified as follows:

operating step four is replaced by an operating step four bis whereby the loading code present in the second portion of the pallet tag is compared to the corresponding loading code already present in the second IT equipment of the consignee, i.e. of that who is receiving the pallet;

operating step five is replaced by an operating step five bis whereby a notice generated by the second IT equipment of the consignee is displayed on the first electronic equipment of the pallet consignee indicating whether the comparison made in operating step four bis was successful and it is accepted by the individual charged with transportation, for instance the driver of the carrier having reached the destination point.

In this embodiment a seventh operating step is also added whereby the second IT equipment sends an instruction to the third centralized IT equipment suitable for associating the name of the consignee to the pallet ID, while removing all or some of the remaining information contained in the loading code, for instance the name of the consigner.

The method described above makes it possible to apply the system according to the present invention in an advantageous and quick manner. Such method is not the only one suitable for using the system according to the present invention, but it is the preferred one. Description of the figures

Figures 1 and 2 show the equipment according to the present invention;

Figures 3 and 4 show the operating step of the method according to the present invention.

Figure 1 shows a pallet (1) provided with an RFD, not graphically represented here, and also shows the numeral 2 in a possible position where it can be located on board the pallet (1). The RFID includes a tag (3) not graphically represented here, provided with: (i) a first non updatable portion (3 ¹ ), not graphically represented here, which contains a pallet identification number and the name of the pallet owner (ID); (ii) a second portion (3 ² ), not graphically represented here. A tridimensional GPS (9) and an electronic equipment (10) suitable for measuring and recording at least one data item (1 1) concerning the environment characteristics in which the pallet is and was are also installed on board the pallet.

Figure 1 also shows a first electronic equipment (1) suitable for reading- writing the tag. Such first read /write equipment is provided with devices, not graphically represented here, for instance a wireless link, in particular suitable for linking to a second IT equipment (7), represented in figure 2, a memory (5), and an indicator (6) which outputs an audible or visual signal.

Figure 2 shows a first electronic equipment (4), whose features have already been illustrated with reference to figure 1, a second IT equipment (7), for instance a personal computer, suitable for collecting and sending data, in particular from the first equipment (4) and from a third electronic equipment (3), also represented in figure 2, which handles data from and to the second IT equipment (7) which can receive signals from a tridimensional GPS (9), not graphically represented here, on board the pallet (1), and to graphically output said signals.

Figure 3 shows the method according to the present invention in the form of a block diagram of the individual operating steps of the method:

a first operating step (101) whereby the ID of the pallet (1) is read out by the first IT equipment (4) of the consigner;

a second operating step (102) whereby the ID is sent to the second IT equipment (7) of the consigner;

a third operating step (103) whereby the ID received during the second operating step (102) of the method is associated with electronically encoded information, containing said first information, in an even alternative combined, of the names of the carrier, of the individual charged with transportation, of the consignee, and of the consigner, thus obtaining altogether a set of electronically encoded information called loading code;

a fourth operating step (104) whereby the loading code is written in the second portion (3 ² ) of the tag (3) of the pallet (1) having the ID received by the second IT equipment (7) of the consigner during the second operating step (102) of the method; a fifth operating step (105) whereby the loading code is displayed on the first electronic equipment (4) of the consigner and the loading code displayed on said first electronic equipment of the consigner is validated by the individual charged with transportation;

a sixth operating step (106) whereby said loading code is sent to the third centralized IT equipment (8).

Figure 4 shows an ameliorative embodiment of the method according to the present invention in the form of a block diagram of the individual operating steps of the method:

operating step four (104) is replaced by an operating step four bis (204) whereby the loading code present in the second portion (3 ² ) of the tag (3) of the pallet (1) is compared to the corresponding loading code present in the second IT equipment (7) of the consignee;

operating step five (105) is replaced by operating step five bis (205) whereby a notice output by the second IT equipment (7) of the consignee is displayed on the first electronic equipment (4) of the consignee indicating whether the comparison made during operating step four bis (204) was successful and it is accepted by the individual charged with transportation, for instance the driver of the carrier, after reaching the destination point;

a seventh operating step (206) whereby an instruction is sent by the second IT equipment (7) to the third centralized IT equipment (8) suitable for associating the name of the consignee with the ID of the pallet (1) and all or some of the information items contained in the loading code are deleted.