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Department of Engineering, ICT and Technologies for Energy and Transport Patent Title Container finder – a system for verifying the number of containers in a stack and related method. Ref. CNR 10295 Assignee(s): CNR, Vitrociset Spa CNR Institute: ICAR Main Inventor: Massimo Cossentino Countries: IT, EP Priority date: 14/11/2013 Abstract The present invention refers to a system for verifying the number of containers in a stack of containers. This system allows to check the number of containers in a stack of containers inside a confined space, such as a storage area, with respect to the number of containers in the same stack of containers, which is stored in a database. The above mentioned monitoring system can be used in the areas in which a huge amount of containers is to be handled. Background Nowadays there are not technologies that can solve the above mentioned problem. A specific attention has been given to he monitoring of containers during their transport. Some systems, designed for monitoring and tracking containers, are based on the principle that a container should never be lost within a storage area and each movement within this area is always detected. Technology The purpose of the present invention is to provide a simple and low cost system able to verify the number of containers of a stack positioned within a storage area; it can perform a comparison between the number of containers of a stack stored in a database and the number of containers of the corresponding stack detected by the system, with the aim to indicate mismatches (if any) to an operator. Advantages and Applications The present invention refers to the monitoring of wide storage areas and, advantageously, it permits to reduce employment of human operators, a low impact on existing structures, a real­time monitoring and an autonomous work. Development stage The invention doesn’t have a prototype yet. 7