Help identify a very strange truck seen in Queens, NY.

August 9, 2006 6:13 PM

Help identify a very strange truck seen in Queens, NY. Scanners, cameras and GPS Oh My!

I hacked up a SketchUp model, see it here. It should be obvious at this point that I'm not a 3D modeler by trade :) The truck isn't mine, the big ugly white primitives, however, are.

The truck was a heavy-duty american (GMC or Dodge) pickup truck, painted white parked on the side of the road, off of Queens Blvd. The truck had fleet markings on the front right wheel well behind the wheel and was in general immaculate. Inside the cab was a laptop computer on a vehicle mount and a very worn 5 borough road atlas. The white slab on top of the cab represents an amber traffic-diverting signal. There were two rear-facing floodlights but my 3D modeling motivation expired before I got around to them.

The antanna-looking thing on the tailgate looked a lot like a GPS antenna. The two boxes facing out sidways were heavy-duty external camera housings, complete with little wipers.

The funky box thing hanging off the back doesn't do justice to the real box thing which was streamlined and made of smooth, shiny white plastic. The only identifying marks on it was the brand name Sarnoff and a model number something like D??-5???

First I thought it was an Amazon A9-esque storefront mapper, but that didn't explain the strange projection hanging off the back. I googled Sarnoff and they seem to be a GE-style company in that they make everything from cameras to bio-warfare detectors.

One of the first google hits on their name involved them (somehow) helping ConEd (electric company for NYC) synchronize two power plants using gps. Doesn't make sense to me either, but there you go, and there were blackouts just coming to a close around the time I saw it.

Does anyone know what on earth this thing is/does? The curiosity is killing me.

posted by Skorgu to technology (9 comments total)

ConEd (and most any other energy supplier, as well as many large energy consumers) use GPS to time-synch the data logging on their electrical dsitribution equipment, enabling them to perform sequence-of-events monitoring when equipment fails.
posted by skwm at 6:18 PM on August 9, 2006

It's for Drive-By Detection of Dangerous Stray Voltage. There's a photo of the truck in the PDF. Your drawing is very good.

I assume this is in reaction to that woman getting killed by stepping on an electrified metal plate in the East Village a couple of years ago.
posted by smackfu at 6:41 PM on August 9, 2006

Also, Gothamist has some more info.
posted by smackfu at 6:45 PM on August 9, 2006

very nice catch, smack.

No, I think it's about very poorly press-covered electrical fires in Queens.
posted by baylink at 6:48 PM on August 9, 2006

Or maybe I'm wrong.

On that generator sync article, I'm not sure why you'd need even GPS-time, which is what they were using, to sync a local generator to an external feed; you *have* both pieces of electricity where you are.

But syncing them up before you intertie *is* important...
posted by baylink at 6:57 PM on August 9, 2006

Who was David Sarnoff? Ask Mr. Kim - or Mr. Kim's robot for that matter.
posted by shoesfullofdust at 7:02 PM on August 9, 2006

smackfu must have it. Check out Page 4 of This Brochure.
posted by stew560 at 7:29 PM on August 9, 2006

Wow, you guys are awesome. Yeah, a few blocks from where I saw the truck there had been an underground electrical fire last week. Certainly related.

Man, that video is cheesy but the tech is pretty impressive. The cameras make sense now.
posted by Skorgu at 8:01 PM on August 9, 2006

Or maybe I'm wrong.

On that generator sync article, I'm not sure why you'd need even GPS-time, which is what they were using, to sync a local generator to an external feed; you *have* both pieces of electricity where you are.

The article isn't about syncing a single generator to a grid, but about matching two grids, which, from the article, is more complicated.

For the single-generator case, it is cool to watch a synchroscope in action. Most of the gauges and indicators in a plant just move to their setpoint and stay there, which is good for operations but less interesting to watch, but the synchroscope spins like crazy in all directions until you're matched, and has two flashing lights (not pictured in article) on top to boot.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 8:37 PM on August 9, 2006