Velvac & Phillips team up on TrailerNet

Phillips Industries (www.phillipsind.com) and Velvac, Inc. have announced a new collaboration between the two companies to offer TrailerNet™, a new patent-pending connected vehicle solution designed to support trailer-to-tractor video and data communications with connectivity that is both robust and high-performance.  

Velvac’s Road iQ subsidiary worked with Phillips Industries to develop TrailerNet, which augments the traditional tractor-trailer 7-pin electrical connection with an additional ISO 15-pin cable connection. This 15-pin cable connection, when combined with Phillips’ trailer-mounted dual nosebox and additional tractor-mounted tail box, provides a simple, secure, real-time video and data connection between the tractor and the trailer. More importantly, it provides connectivity that is immune to the noise, interference, and latency concerns associated with other wireless or PLC data transmission approaches. TrailerNet provides the high-speed data highway between tractors and trailers needed to support future generations of intelligent devices mounted on trailers, including multiple trailer mounted video cameras, CAN communications, etc.   “We saw that there was a growing need for simple, reliable, high-speed data connectivity between tractors and trailers that was not being met by various wireless or PLC solutions on the market” said Jeff Porter, CEO of Velvac, “there is an explosion of video and CAN data being generated on commercial vehicles today, and the inability to cleanly move that data off the trailer to the tractor is a growing problem that TrailerNet is designed to address.”  Rob Phillips, president of Phillips Industries added “I was amazed to see that most cars on the road had backup cameras for safety reasons, yet only a small fraction of trailers are equipped with rear-facing camera technology. Pairing trailer cameras via Wi-Fi to drivers’ smart-devices isn’t easy or reliable, and light-duty coiled cables struggle to do the trick. TrailerNet is the first system designed specifically for sending high-speed and noise-free video data from the trailer to the driver, and is the result of excellent collaboration between Velvac and our engineers.”  The initial release of TrailerNet will support the connection of up to four exterior or interior trailer-mounted cameras to displays and recording devices in the tractor. Future TrailerNet releases will additionally support a J1939 gateway between the tractor and the trailer. The TrailerNet open systems architecture is designed to support all industry standard data and video signals, so it will support the vast majority of mobile cameras, standard displays, and recording devices, on the market today. It can also be integrated into Road iQ’s advanced VideoData Server system for surround vision viewing, recording, and connected vehicle applications.