April/May 2003

Monitoring of mobile assets is usually done from an office-based PC, but a system called Spider now available from Eye-Track allows managers to control and monitor assets via their mobile telephones - and even to immobilise them in the event of theft.

The Spider unit, which comes with a pre-programmed mobile phone-style SIM card, is installed in the vehicle and configured to monitor street-level location, road speed, engine temperature, engine revs and many other functions. Optional parameter monitoring can include door/cargo door openings, accidents and unauthorised use.

Alerts are sent via an SMS message to a specific mobile phone, which can be used to immobilise the vehicle via a return MS message. Each message can contain up to 23 logging positions. Eye-Track has developed Spider specifically for the T-Mobile network, for which it has a dedicated gateway.

Each Spider unit incorporates a 12-channel GPS unit and 900-1800 MHz GSM modem and messaging system to relay information. There is inbuilt GPS failure backup by means of GSM high-rate triangulation, and there are interfaces for keyboard, liquid crystal display and hands-free operation and an RS232 serial data port.