AUTOMATIC DATA COLLECTION DEVICE HAVING A NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS CAPABILITY

摘要

The invention provides a system and method for controlling a plurality of automatic data collection (ADC) device platforms. In the invention, a remote computing system having browsing software adapted for receiving and sending Hypertext Mark-Up Language (HTML) documents, Dynamic Hypertext Mark-Up Language (DHTML) documents, and Extensible Mark-Up Language (XML) documents over the World Wide Web communicates with a network of ADC platform devices. A Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) master agent at the ADC device platform communicates with the remote computing system and a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server sends HTML documents, DHTML documents, and XML documents to the remote computing system over the World Wide Web. A translator translates SNMP-formatted data sent to the attached ADC devices into a format suitable for reception by each ADC device. Another translator translates data received from the ADC devices into the SNMP format. The SNMP master agent communicates with the remote computing system using the TCP protocol, the UDP/IP protocol, and the UDP+ protocol. The ADC platform device may utilize a wireless communications system for communicating with the remote computing system.