The present invention relates to a load cell operable with a vehicle having a
chassis and a container carried by the chassis, with the load cell supported by
the chassis and supporting the container for measuring the weight of the container
and any load therein, and to a system having a plurality of these load cells on
a vehicle, and to a method of executing weight measurements of loads in a container
of a vehicle. The load cell includes a plurality of strain gauges and coupling
elements in a floating mount configuration for coupling the load cell to the container
and to the chassis in a dual shear beam loading configuration, while limited translational
movement is permitted of the load cell relative to the container or the chassis.
The load cell also has an electrical interface for receiving analog output data
from the strain gauges, adaptively filtering this data and outputting a digital
signal representative of the weight of the container and any load therein. This
invention permits measurement of incremental loads with sufficient accuracy to
permit customer billing based on the measurements.