MATTS Can Track Container’s Cargo
BACKGROUND
The Marine Asset Tag Tracking
System (MATTS) is a miniature sensor, data-logging computer, radio
transceiver and inertial-assisted
tracking system for containers that
has been integrated into a small
black box. Affixed to a ship container, MATTS configures a container’s
location, stores the container’s travel
history and logs when the container
has been opened, and reports it to a
Web-based center.
SCOPE
The Department of Homeland
Security’s Science & Technology
(DHS S&T) directorate has spent
about $3 million developing
MATTS. The directorate is manufacturing production units through
industry partner iControl Inc. for a
variety of testing venues. The cost
goal for MATTS is $50 per unit per
container per trip between ports.
LISA NIPP
TIMELINE
Work on MATTS began in 2004
and is in its last phase of development. Each component of MATTS
— the unit, its logging capabilities
and its inertial tracking system that
uses the Global Positioning System
of navigation satellites — has been
tested. The final “meshing” test is
expected in early 2008, which will
involve simultaneous tests of all
the components.
WHO’S IN CHARGE
Robert N. Knetl, engineering
adviser and DHS S&T’s program
manager for container security.
Prior to joining the DHS, Knetl
spent 30 years in the program
management field.
The MATTS project was a small business innovative research contract. It started out with about 16 different vendors in the competition — and we’re talking very small businesses of five to 30 people. Finally,
we got down to our current contractor, iControl, which has about five or
10 people. They are an innovative group of folks.
What we were looking for was a tag that could communicate globally.
And this tag had to be unlike one developed by the Department of Defense,
where cost may be less of an object. We were looking to track and communicate with containers that have a variety of products. But we didn’t want the
cost to be the driver of the product.
We also didn’t want to have a proprietary solution that industry would
have to be held captive to. To complicate it, we wanted it to be easily
installed, and we wanted it to have a 10-year battery life.
MATTS has applicability beyond just interfacing with what it was
designed to interface with. It’s able to interface with the container security devices of the future. We could apply it to truck cargo, potentially hazardous cargo and we are also testing it with rail.
Trade is global. In developing this system, we didn’t see in the marketplace what we currently needed. So this is to stimulate that sort of technology development — ultimately to prove that it can work and
then to potentially lead to international standards.
