Position and drum state together
GPS position alongside drum rotation direction and speed, so a stopped or reversed drum is visible while the truck is still on the road.
Concrete Truck Tracking with Drum and Delivery Monitoring
A GPS dot on a map tells dispatch where a mixer truck is. It does not tell them whether the drum is turning, when the load was discharged, or why the hydraulics are working harder than last month. Melqart Systems fits each truck with an Owasys open Linux gateway that reads position, drum rotation, hydraulic drum-drive pressure, temperature, and work events, then delivers the data over MQTT to infrastructure you own.
Beyond the GPS dot
Ready-mix delivery runs on a clock that location tracking alone cannot see.
Once cement meets water, the load has a limited window to reach the pour. Most fleet tracking stops at position and speed, so dispatch sees where the truck is but not what the drum is doing. Loading, transit, and discharge times end up on paper tickets, and a drum that stopped turning on the road is discovered at the site. Melqart Systems connects the drum, the hydraulics, and the truck bus to one data stream, so dispatch, plant, and workshop teams work from the same record of every delivery.
Loading, transit, and discharge events
Work events are detected on the gateway and timestamped, giving you a record of when each load was charged and when it was discharged.
One schema for mixed fleets
J1939 over CAN where the chassis provides it, retrofit analog sensors where it does not. Every truck reports in the same format.
Data on your infrastructure
Telemetry goes over MQTT to a broker you host. The data stays with you, not in a third-party telematics cloud.
The challenge
Where current approaches fall short
Drum problems surface at the pour
Standard fleet tracking shows position, not drum activity. A drum that stopped or slowed during transit goes unnoticed until the truck arrives and the site crew checks the load.
Delivery times rest on paper tickets
Loading, arrival, and discharge times are written down by hand or not at all. When a customer disputes a delivery, there is no machine record to show what happened and when.
Hydraulic wear is found when the drum drive fails
Drum-drive pressure is not recorded, so workshops plan hydraulic service by calendar or wait for a breakdown. Older trucks without factory sensors are left out entirely.
Architecture
How Concrete Truck Tracking Works
Each truck carries an Owasys open Linux gateway. It reads the truck bus and the drum sensors, detects events at the edge, buffers locally, and publishes over MQTT to a broker you operate.
- 01
Truck Bus & Drum Sensors
J1939 over CAN, analog retrofit sensors
- 02
Owasys Linux Gateway
GPS, event detection, local buffer
- 03
Cellular Link
Store and forward when coverage drops
- 04
Your MQTT Broker
Your dispatch, plant, and maintenance systems
What's included
The Deployment Package
An engineering project, not a subscription: Melqart Systems designs the integration, delivers the gateway software, and hands over a data pipeline that runs on your infrastructure.
Drum and Hydraulic Sensing
Drum rotation direction and speed, hydraulic drum-drive pressure, and temperature, read from the truck bus or from retrofit sensors.
Work Event Detection
Loading, transit, and discharge events derived on the gateway from drum and position data, each with a timestamp and location.
Edge Alerts
Rules that run on the truck, for example a drum that stops turning during transit, so the alert does not depend on a cloud round trip.
MQTT Pipeline You Own
A documented data schema published to a broker you host, ready for your dispatch software, plant systems, or analytics.
Technical specifications
Vehicle Interfaces
J1939 over CAN where the chassis exposes it. Analog and retrofit sensor inputs for older trucks without factory drum or pressure signals.
Measured Signals
GPS position, drum rotation direction and speed, hydraulic drum-drive pressure, and temperature, normalized to one schema across truck vintages.
Work Events
Loading, transit, and discharge (unloading) events detected on the gateway and published as discrete, timestamped records.
Edge Hardware
Owasys open Linux gateway on each truck. Standard Linux tooling, no closed firmware between your sensors and your data.
Connectivity and Buffering
Cellular uplink with a local buffer on the gateway. When coverage drops, records are stored and sent once the connection returns.
Data Delivery
MQTT to a broker the operator hosts. Data stays on your infrastructure and integrates with the systems you already run.
Applications
Use cases and industries
Ready-Mix Delivery Fleets
Track every mixer truck from plant to pour, with drum state and discharge events alongside position, so dispatch knows what is happening to each load.
Mixed-Vintage Truck Fleets
Bring older chassis without factory sensors into the same data stream as newer trucks, using retrofit sensors and one shared schema.
Plant and Workshop Operations
Give the batching plant actual loading and discharge times, and give the workshop hydraulic pressure history to plan drum-drive maintenance.
Results
Key outcomes
“Know where every truck is, and what its drum is doing.”
- See a stopped drum during transit, before the truck reaches site.
- Know when each truck loaded and when it discharged, from a machine record.
- Back up delivery times with timestamped events when a customer asks.
- Plan hydraulic maintenance from drum-drive pressure history.
- Run newer and older trucks on one data schema.
- Keep the data pipeline and the data on your own infrastructure.
Track your concrete trucks, drum included.
Melqart Systems designs the sensor integration, gateway software, and MQTT pipeline, and hands over a system that runs on your infrastructure.