RFID has developed rapidly in the field of container management

Global cargo circulation mostly uses containers as carriers for transportation in various places, especially there are quite a lot of shipping containers. Container manufacturers and container transportation management companies undertake a large amount of heavy statistical management work such as production transportation, finished product transportation, and stacking and storage. RFID radio frequency identification technology is favored by the container transportation industry for its characteristics of fast recognition speed, high reading accuracy, no need for contact, and strong environmental adaptability. RFID has developed rapidly in the field of container management.

After the container is produced and shipped out of the factory, RFID technology collects the location and status data of the container. RFID technology can adapt to the harsh environment of the container production line and the metal box group in the yard. It can monitor the containers and shipping vehicles during the off-line and transportation of finished products. Real-time tracking enables management of containers (container production management), consignment vehicles (automatic freight settlement) and yard automatic management (container storage status).

The application of RFID technology in the container field enables accurate control and tracking of container information. Compared with applications in industrial automation and other fields, the application of RFID electronic tags in container logistics and transportation has strong particularity. RFID electronic tags flow with containers at sea, docks, yards and other places. The working environment has temperature differences and can be applied to various harsh environments.

RFID container management system composition

RFID Card issuer, RFID Reader/writer, RFID electronic tag (container electronic tag and trailer electronic tag), antenna, vehicle-mounted reader system, factory exit monitoring subsystem, yard automatic management subsystem, central monitoring subsystem.

(1) Central monitoring center subsystem: monitors the operation of other subsystems and interacts with other subsystems. Carry out container information management and consignment vehicle information management, data statistics and analysis, freight settlement, and provide container information inquiry services to customers.

(2) Factory monitoring subsystem: monitors and records factory container information, shipping vehicle information, occurrence time, operators, etc. Statistically analyze the factory conditions of various containers.

(3) Yard container management system: monitors and records container information passing through the gate, corresponding towing vehicle information, incident time, operators and other information, manages the stacking location information of containers in the yard, and quickly and accurately finds the container status; It has a vivid 2D container yard map and functions of placing and finding containers.

RFID container management workflow

(1) Write a card in the container workshop. When the finished container comes off the production line, the corresponding container information such as the container code is written into the blank RFID electronic tag through the system software and card writer, and the coded label is adsorbed to the container. The stacker truck of the production plant The reader system confirms the container number before leaving the factory.

(2) Factory reading of containers. Confirm that the factory container will be transported out of the production plant by trailer and go to the yard. The reader installed at the factory exit will read the container label information and trailer information (if the label reading fails, the staff at the exit monitoring point can manually input the box number) and transmit it to the factory. In the monitoring subsystem, the system uploads it to the central monitoring subsystem through the Internet network.

(3) Reading at the yard gate entrance. When the container enters the yard gate, the RFID reader on the yard entrance gate reads the container and vehicle RFID electronic tags, and saves the vehicle information, container information and their matching relationship, arrival time, etc. to the yard management subsystem. Simultaneously uploaded to the central subsystem.

(4) Place/pick up containers at the yard. After the container enters the yard, the stacker system places the container in the stacking position assigned by the central subsystem. The vehicle-mounted reader automatically reads the information of the captured containers. The data interacts with the central database in the control room through wireless data transmission. After verification, the containers are stacked at the location indicated by the system graphics. When picking up a container, the stacker system finds the corresponding container according to the graphic instructions. The reader reads the electronic tag on the container, verifies that the container should be picked up, and removes the container.

(5) When the container is shipped out of the yard. The reader system at the exit of the yard reads the tags of containers and vehicles at the exit, determines whether the transported boxes are the ones that should be shipped out, and after confirmation, the vehicle information and the box information are matched, and the information and departure time are saved in the local database and the central database (MAS database). If the container information is read successfully, the staff will remove the tag for recycling and enter the next round of application.

Readers are installed at key points such as the entrance to the container factory and the entrance and exit of the storage yard to enable dynamic reading of labels without stopping, speeding up the delivery, transportation and storage of off-line products, improving the accuracy of information collection and reducing the number of staff Manual work in harsh environments.

RFID technology has been widely used in container management. RFID technology can achieve accurate real-time container history and current status, transportation vehicle history, storage location, recording and query of yard containers, thereby realizing container production and yard data. management, vehicle transportation record management, real-time data transmission and real-time transparency of container supply chain information.