Remote anomaly diagnosis and reconfiguration of an automatic data collection device platform over a telecommunications network

Abstract

The invention provides a system and method for remotely diagnosing and repairing a plurality of Automatic Data Collection ('ADC') device platforms. A remote service technician utilizes a computing system having browsing software that communicates with a network of ADC platform devices. Diagnostic queries for particular ADC devices may be retrieved by the browsing software from a diagnostic server that sends Hypertext Mark-Up Language ('HTML') documents, Dynamic Hypertext Mark-Up Language (“DHTML”) documents, and/or Extensible Mark-Up Language (“XML”) documents containing appropriate diagnostic applets. The remote technician sends diagnostic queries to a Simple Network Management Protocol (“SNMP”) master agent at the ADC device platform, and a translator translates the diagnostic queries sent to the ADC device platform into a format suitable for reception by its ADC devices in order to effect anomaly diagnosis and functionality restoration. Another translator translates data received from the ADC device into the SNMP format for transmission to the remote service technician in order for the remote service technician to perform diagnostic analysis. The SNMP master agent communicates with the remote computing system using the Transmission Control Protocol (“TCP”), the User Datagram Protocol/Internet Protocol (“UDP/IP”), and/or the User Datagram Plus Protocol (“UDP+”). The ADC platform device may also utilize a wireless communication system for communicating with the remote service technician.