Patent ID: 7932815

Claim:
A method in a tractor-trailer environment for wirelessly communicating between a tractor and a set of trailers, the method comprising: initializing a tractor wireless communication device associated with the tractor; initializing at least one trailer wireless communication device associated with at least one of the set of trailers; associating the tractor wireless communication device with a tractor initialization time, wherein the tractor initialization time indicates a time at which the tractor wireless communication device was initialized; associating each of the at least one trailer wireless communication device with a trailer initialization time, wherein the trailer initialization time indicates a time at which each of the at least one trailer wireless communication device was initialized; establishing a communication link between the tractor wireless communication device and the at least one trailer wireless communication device and exchanging event information between said devices; and determining whether the tractor wireless communication device and the at least one trailer wireless communication device are in physical proximity by comparing the tractor initialization time with the trailer initialization time.