Balance Bourbeau, a Canadian provider of truck scales and weighing systems in Ville St. Laurent, Quebec, is providing a forestry tracking and management system that uses RFID and GPS technology. Four logging and sawmill operators in the Quebec area are now using the company's Virtual AT (Virtual Authorization for Transportation) system.

Identec Solutions is providing RFID interrogators (readers) and tags for the Virtual AT solution, which facilitates the loading and weighing of logging trucks by reducing the need for drivers to step out of their trucks or fill out paperwork. Instead, an RFID tag installed on the truck cab's dashboard automatically transmits data the logging company can use to track the truck and its load---and to calculate how many hours the driver worked.

While a crane called a loader lays logs onto a truck in the forest, a computer and RFID reader on the loader writes data onto the vehicle's 915 MHz active tag. This data includes the driver's name and license number, the loading location (determined by a GPS device onboard the loader), and the species of tree that was cut. The driver then proceeds to the forestry company's scale, at a sawmill that can be as much as 160 miles from the forest where the timber was felled.

When the truck drives onto the scale, an RFID interrogator with a read range of up to 300 feet retrieves the truck's data and writes its weight and time of day to the RFID tag. The truck driver does not need to come to a full stop. The driver then takes his truck to a site where a loader removes the logs. Once empty, the truck goes through another scale, where its tare (unloaded) weight is written to the tag. Data on the tag can then be erased except for details about the truck itself, and the truck can return to the forest for another load.