An upstate New York government contractor has launched a program called Cargo*Mate to track intermodal container chassis.

Developed by PAR Technology Corp. of New Hartford, N.Y., under contract with the Federal Highway Administration, Cargo*Mate is intended to monitor transport assets and cargo throughout an intermodal shipment cycle.
Eventually, it is hoped the system will collect location and status data from chassis-mounted sensors, merge it with cargo data and provide shipment tracking across modes to customers on the Internet.
According to Greg Talomie, PAR’s VP Logistics Management Systems, the program initially involves 250 chassis with transceivers mounted in the I-bars of the frames. Despite that location under a cargo container, he said, Cargo*Mate will be able to communicate over Aeris.net's MicroBurst wireless data network throughout North America.
GPS location is more difficult, he said, because of the necessary triangulation from three or four satellites. “We're working on unique antenna designs and techniques,” he said.
GPS isn’t the only challenge. The chassis themselves take a beating unhealthy for high-tech equipment.
“This is a pretty rugged piece of gear. They turn them upside down, they stand them up vertically. We wanted to determine, can we put a brain on this?” said Talomie.
As of now, the “brain” consists of three separate chassis-mounted components. But PAR is engineering those down to a single unit, he explained. Cargo*Mate will be able to sense if a container is attached, if the chassis is hooked up to a tractor and whether it is under power.
After the 250-unit tests, PAR expects to build 5,000 units for evaluation and finally to take the product commercial.
PAR's partners in the Cargo*Mate program include Interpool/TRAC Lease of Princeton, N.J., APL of Oakland, Calif., Norfolk Southern of Norfolk, Va., the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Aeris.net of San Jose, Calif.