Fleetilla Technology

Overview
Fleetilla’s solutions are built around hardware and software components that leverage commercial robust wireless data networks and the Internet for location determination, wireless data transmission, data access, display and management. This allows customers to benefit from open and affordable technologies to easily access Fleetilla’s advanced solutions.

One of the key components of our solution is an AVL (Automatic Vehicle Location) unit placed in each mobile asset that needs to be managed. The AVL unit uses signals from GPS satellites to compute the location of the vehicle. It may also gather and integrate other pertinent data such as engine and vehicle performance, ignition, braking, operating hours, and end user data from and to add-on devices such as PDAs. It periodically communicates with Fleetilla’s network operations center (NOC) using the wireless technology supported by the unit to send and receive the gathered information and commands from the NOC. The Fleetilla Web-To-Wireless Gateway at the NOC provides an integrated, consistent and ubiquitous interface for fleet management, trailer management, non-powered asset management and other solutions, to the end user at the Fleetilla.Net website. Further, the Gateway provides a consistent interface to all devices deployed across these solutions irrespective of the wireless data technology employed – GPRS, SMS, AMPS, satellite, etc.

Some of the key elements of our technology solution are:
A) GPS Receivers
B) Vehicle Data Acquisition
C) Unpowered Asset Tracking
D) Wireless Data Transmission
E) Fleetilla Web-to-Wireless Gateway
F) XML Web Services
G) Custom Solutions and Integration Services

GPS Receivers

GPS (Global Positioning System) consists of a constellation of 28 satellites (24 active and 4 spare) orbiting the earth. The GPS system is owned and operated by the US Department of Defense. These satellite orbits are selected in such a way that any location on earth will have, at the minimum, four satellites visible to it. GPS Satellites produce precisely timed and coordinated transmissions. A GPS receiver located anywhere on earth can listen into these transmissions and compute its own position.

Fleetilla’s AVL units have highly sensitive GPS receivers that can tune into 12 or more GPS satellites simultaneously. Due to their enhanced sensitivity, these receivers can obtain a GPS lock (in other words, compute their position) in many situations where clear visibility to the sky is somewhat obstructed. The GPS receiver computes the location, speed and direction of the mobile asset every second. Fleetilla’s AVL units contain advanced algorithms to compute the distance traveled (mileage) by the asset using the GPS receiver data. Our mileage computation algorithms are finely tuned to handle many GPS anomalies such as ‘drift and bounce’ and produce dependable, long-term mileage data that has less than 1% error in most situations. In addition, Fleetilla AVL units can detect whether the GPS receiver has good antenna connection (antenna open/short) and has good satellite visibility, and report these problems back to the Gateway so that field level problems can be identified and resolved quickly.
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Vehicle Data Acquisition

In addition to reporting the position of the mobile asset based on GPS information, our AVL units can control and report on the status of a variety of sensors and intelligent peripherals attached to the unit. Information such as acceleration, braking, fuel usage, temperature, etc. can be reported along with GPS data. The focus of our hardware design is on creating an extensible and modular platform for telematics. Many peripherals can be attached to the Fleetilla AVL unit to enhance its functionality and meet the unique requirements of an application. A basic Fleetilla AVL unit can integrate information from various peripheral units and act as a hub for wireless data exchange between the mobile asset and the Gateway.

The AVL units employ event-driven exception-based reporting mechanisms, such as stopped, moving, ignition, time of day, time interval expired, etc. Thus they relay only relevant field information and prevent significant data transmission overheads. Optimizations such as this allow us to offer solutions at significantly lower costs to our customers than our competition.
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Unpowered Asset Tracking

Fleetilla has extensive experience in the design and development of tracking solutions for trailers, mobile gensets, and many other types of assets that may not have a ready source of power and are subject to extreme weather conditions. If your requirements are large, we can create a custom solution for you, many times based on off-the-shelf components. Our expertise in deep power management and long-life battery technologies enable us to create unique solutions considering your application requirements such as battery life ( two weeks to 10+ years), update frequency (several times a day to say once a week), form factor, sensors, coverage, etc. Contact us to discuss your requirements in detail.
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Wireless Data Transmission

Wireless technology is constantly evolving. It is also a fact that different wireless data technologies are appropriate for different applications and geographical locations – no one technology generally fits all needs. With this in mind, Fleetilla follows a flexible and modular approach using the wireless data transmission technology best suited for your application. Our approach leverages open and established, commercial wireless networks to keep customer’s operational costs low, while ensuring that emerging wireless standards can be easily incorporated into the solution with minimal upgrade costs. We currently support many terrestrial wireless cellular technologies including GPRS, SMS and MicroBurst® AMPS Control Channel. As an example, our quad band GPRS and SMS devices can seamlessly switch between multiple carrier networks which ensures maximum coverage, and can also operate seamlessly on all four frequencies (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) used for GSM transmission worldwide. The modular approach ensures that other terrestrial and/or satellite data transmission schemes can be incorporated, if the need arises. Optional interfaces to different satellite modems (Inmarsat, Iridium, Orbcomm) can be created for demanding applications with unique coverage requirements.

Our Intelligent Coverage Sensing™ (ICS) algorithms ensure robust data transmission even in poor coverage areas. Our devices incorporate advanced data buffering techniques and can store significant amounts of data if the device goes into areas where there is no wireless coverage. The stored data is transmitted as soon as good coverage is obtained.
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Fleetilla Web-To-Wireless Gateway

Organizations have a mix of mobile assets – trucks and trailers; powered and non-powered; mobile assets that operate in metropolitan areas only and those that operate regionally or nationally. Some require simple position reports only while others require complex information management.

Our Fleetilla Web-To-Wireless Gateway is designed to integrate a broad array of wireless data technologies, and reporting and management schemes required by different applications involving these mobile assets. It uses a layered and modular architecture which is easily enhanced to incorporate new and complementary wireless data networks (satellite and terrestrial, CDMA 1xRTT and GSM GPRS, etc.).

Irrespective of the underlying hardware and technology used for wireless data interfaces, the Fleetilla.Net website at the Gateway always presents a consistent and integrated interface to information pertaining to your organization’s all mobile assets. Using this single interface, you can manage a large variety of mobile assets spread over many different geographies, whether you are a small fleet operator operating at one location, or a large organization with a complex mobile asset portfolio.

Fleetilla.Net is accessible over the Internet using the Microsoft IE web browser and provides the option to enhance security by encrypting your session with Secured Socket Layer (SSL). The Fleetilla Web-To-Wireless Gateway is managed at our network operations center (NOC) – which consists of Tier-1 carrier grade facilities, with secure access, redundant power and ISP connectivity, and provides a high availability (24 x 7 x 365) solution to our customers.
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XML Web Services

If you provide dispatching, load management and/or supply-chain integration software and services, you can leverage Fleetilla’s XML Web Services to embed wireless asset tracking and communication functionality into your application. If you prefer, you can private-label our hardware and wireless services and offer a complete end-to-end package to your customers. Similarly, if you are an end-user with a custom dispatching software already in place, Fleetilla can work with your internal IT (or external systems integrators) to embed Fleetilla wireless tracking data in your current application. Many of our customers have integrated Fleetilla with their existing applications, e.g., supply-chain, logistics and delivery, dispatching, mobile workforce and field automation.

Customers connect to the Gateway over the Internet to extract information or send commands to their mobile assets. The majority of the functionality available to a user inside the Fleetilla.Net website is also available through the XML Web Services. The XML Web Services can be used to retrieve data periodically or to be alerted when there is new information to be retrieved.

The XML Web Services conform to widely used state-of-the-art standards such as SOAP to communicate with the Gateway. The XML Web Services also implements major transportation industry XML standards for fleet management applications, which can also be used to integrate with a number of widely sold transportation management software.
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Custom Solutions and Integration Services

If you have a unique hardware or software integration need, Fleetilla may be able to help you. Fleetilla tracking solutions can be interfaced to satellite modems, J1708/J1939 vehicle buses, accelerometers, temperature sensors, biometric ID scanners, keypads, PDAs, etc. Our software services can be used as stand alone solutions or integrated into specialized software for maintenance, supply chain, dispatching, driver performance, electronic driver log, load management, service delivery and other similar applications. Fleetilla provides integration services and tailored fleet management solutions for large organizations that require extensive integration with their operations and have specific needs. Please contact us for further information.
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Experience the ease of use and depth of management information provided by a Fleetilla tracking solution. Request a demo.