WSN based intelligent cold chain management

This paper presents a cold chain monitoring system which is implemented by using ubiquitous computing technologies, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) & Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). In this paper, we discuss how cold supply chain works and how we can monitor and control cold supply chain by using wireless tracking and sensing technologies. We propose a prototype design which will provide a well controlled and transparent cold chain system, which could help the users to manage their products’ environmental data in real time during the life cycle. Moreover, we highlight how the availability of product trace data in combination with historical condition-monitoring data can facilitate decision-making processes enhancing supply chain’s performance. Finally we discuss the integration works of these two technologies together in the cold supply chain management system. Hardware and software platform of WSN used in this system are also described in this paper

Utilization and Impact of Internet of Things (IoT) in Food Supply Chains from the Context of Food Loss/Waste Reduction, Shelf-Life Extension and Environmental Impact

openThe Internet of Things (IoT) sensor-based technologies are transforming the realm of food production and consumption by offering the potential to enable real-time tracking and data sharing, thus improving communication in the food supply chain. Specifically, real-time information on the location and state of food products as they travel from farms to processing plants, distribution hubs, and eventually consumers can be provided via IoT-enabled sensors and devices. This enables prompt reaction to deviations from ideal circumstances, delaying spoiling and minimizing food loss and waste (FLW). This approach also allows for dynamic inventory management, mitigating issues of overstocking and understocking often linked to food loss. However, the extent to which the implementation of such technologies can contribute to the mitigation of FLW remains uncertain. Thus, this study explores several IoT applications for food supply chains, including real-time monitoring of temperature, humidity, and other important variables. The research also looks at how IoT may help food goods last longer on the shelf. Moreover, IoT technologies have significant environmental impacts, and it is crucial to carefully consider its total environmental effect. IoT promotes energy-efficient transportation, lessens overstocking and understocking, and decreases the carbon footprint related to food production and distribution by optimizing supply chain processes. Therefore, this study also examines the effects of IoT adoption on the environment, including the manufacturing and decommissioning of IoT infrastructure and devices. It evaluates rigorously whether the possible negative consequences of technological production and waste exceed the beneficial environmental benefits, such as energy-efficient transportation and decreased carbon footprints. Shortly, It is aimed to deeply analyse the use and effects of IoT in the food supply chains, with an emphasis on how it may decrease food loss and waste, increase shelf life, and environmental impacts of its use through an extensive literature search in this study.The Internet of Things (IoT) sensor-based technologies are transforming the realm of food production and consumption by offering the potential to enable real-time tracking and data sharing, thus improving communication in the food supply chain. Specifically, real-time information on the location and state of food products as they travel from farms to processing plants, distribution hubs, and eventually consumers can be provided via IoT-enabled sensors and devices. This enables prompt reaction to deviations from ideal circumstances, delaying spoiling and minimizing food loss and waste (FLW). This approach also allows for dynamic inventory management, mitigating issues of overstocking and understocking often linked to food loss. However, the extent to which the implementation of such technologies can contribute to the mitigation of FLW remains uncertain. Thus, this study explores several IoT applications for food supply chains, including real-time monitoring of temperature, humidity, and other important variables. The research also looks at how IoT may help food goods last longer on the shelf. Moreover, IoT technologies have significant environmental impacts, and it is crucial to carefully consider its total environmental effect. IoT promotes energy-efficient transportation, lessens overstocking and understocking, and decreases the carbon footprint related to food production and distribution by optimizing supply chain processes. Therefore, this study also examines the effects of IoT adoption on the environment, including the manufacturing and decommissioning of IoT infrastructure and devices. It evaluates rigorously whether the possible negative consequences of technological production and waste exceed the beneficial environmental benefits, such as energy-efficient transportation and decreased carbon footprints. Shortly, It is aimed to deeply analyse the use and effects of IoT in the food supply chains, with an emphasis on how it may decrease food loss and waste, increase shelf life, and environmental impacts of its use through an extensive literature search in this study

Intelligent Cold Supply Chain Management System with Radio Frequency Identification, Global Positioning System, and Wireless Sensor Network

This thesis establishes an intelligent cold supply chain management system which consists of two parts: one is the intelligent tracking system integrated with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Global Positioning System (GPS), and Wireless Sensor Network (WSN); the other is the cold supply chain model. This tracking system is mainly designed to monitor the food products during the transport, including two parts, a data terminal and a data server. The data terminal is installed inside a container, comprised of GPS, Bluetooth, industrial computer, WSN, RFID reader, RFID antenna, and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) modem. The data server is a computer which is able to access internet and has one Structured Query Language (SQL) database. Related application programs are developed with JAVA language. The whole system is successfully tested and meets the expectations we desired at the beginning. In this study, a refrigerator is used to simulate the environment of the container. The data terminal collects all information, including temperature inside the container, GPS location, Product's Identification, and current time in five minute intervals (customers will be asked to set this time interval at the beginning). CDMA cellular network provides the communication between the data server and the data terminal. The data server receives all information and saves the information in the SQL database, which can be used to predict the food safety. Advantages of this tracking system include the ability: 1) to trace and track the products starting from the suppliers to retailers; 2) to monitor and store important parameters during the processing and distribution of food products, such as temperature; 3) to communicate in real time for prompt response; and 4) to quantify food safety prediction. The objective of the model developed in this study is to maximize the profit of the cold supply chain. There are one distribution center, multiple retailers and suppliers involved in the cold supply chain. Since the real-time quality situations of products are available even during the transport, retailers can set prices of products based on the real quality situation. The company is able to dynamically plan the quantity of distribution from the distribution or suppliers' site. In addition, retailers are able to manage the inventory based on the real shelf life of products. This thesis also concludes all different inventory results for retailers under different scenarios which can help retailers to predict and manage the inventory. The optimization software, Lindo, is used to demonstrate that this model is capable to dynamically plan the distribution quantity. The sensitivity analysis for prices, transportation costs, and holding costs is discussed to simulate different situations during the transportation and distribution

Real-Time Anomaly Detection in Cold Chain Transportation Using IoT Technology

There are approximately 88 million tonnes of food waste generated annually in the EU alone. Food spoilage during distribution accounts for some of this waste. To minimise this spoilage, it is of utmost importance to maintain the cold chain during the transportation of perishable foods such as meats, fruits, and vegetables. However, these products are often unfortunately wasted in large quantities when unpredictable failures occur in the refrigeration units of transport vehicles. This work proposes a real-time IoT anomaly detection system to detect equipment failures and provide decision support options to warehouse staff and delivery drivers, thus reducing potential food wastage. We developed a bespoke Internet of Things (IoT) solution for real-time product monitoring and alerting during cold chain transportation, which is based on the Digital Matter Eagle cellular data logger and two temperature probes. A visual dashboard was developed to allow logistics staff to perform monitoring, and business-defined temperature thresholds were used to develop a text and email decision support system, notifying relevant staff members if anomalies were detected. The IoT anomaly detection system was deployed with Musgrave Marketplace, Ireland’s largest grocery distributor, in three of their delivery vans operating in the greater Belfast area. Results show that the LTE-M cellular IoT system is power efficient and avoids sending false alerts due to the novel alerting system which was developed based on trip detection

A Review of Wireless Sensor Technologies and Applications in Agriculture and Food Industry: State of the Art and Current Trends

The aim of the present paper is to review the technical and scientific state of the art of wireless sensor technologies and standards for wireless communications in the Agri-Food sector. These technologies are very promising in several fields such as environmental monitoring, precision agriculture, cold chain control or traceability. The paper focuses on WSN (Wireless Sensor Networks) and RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), presenting the different systems available, recent developments and examples of applications, including ZigBee based WSN and passive, semi-passive and active RFID. Future trends of wireless communications in agriculture and food industry are also discussed

WSN-Based Near Real-Time Environmental Monitoring for Shelf Life Prediction Through Data Processing to Improve Food Safety and Certification

This position paper aims to support a control technique in the perishables goods supply-chain through a combination of near real-time wireless sensor network (WSN) for environmental monitoring and further data processing to predict the shelf life of the product. This approach returns a low cost, versatile and efficient tool that can significantly improve the safety and food certification through the organoleptic qualities control using three different sensors, i.e. temperature, light and humidity. In this article, therefore, the advantages of the proposed technique are explained and a case study is presented to support this approach, as well as an example of processing algorithm for shelf life evaluation

Design of a distributed wireless sensor platform for monitoring and real-time communication of the environmental variables during the supply chain of perishable commodities

Monitoring the main environmental conditions during storage and transportation of perishable foods is necessary to predict quality losses throughout shelf life. By far, temperature is the main factor affecting quality and shelf life, but there are other variables that would greatly affect quality losses such us relative humidity, O2, CO2, ethylene, etc. Thus, the real-time knowledge of the evolution of these parameters during the whole supply chain allows suppliers to prevent for food losses. This paper deeply describes the design of a flexible monitoring system with real-time communication to be used in the supply chain of perishable commodities, using Wi-Fi wireless communication as collaborative networks between different measurement points. Aspects such as consumption, performance and feasibility of the system are described in detail to check the adaptability of its use.This research was funded by Fundación Séneca, Agencia de Ciencia y Tecnología de la Región de Murcia under the ‘Excelence Group Program 19895/GERM/15′. The authors are grateful to RTI2018-099139-B-C21 project, funded by FEDER-EU/Ministry of Science and Innovation—National Research Agency

Developing a real-time monitoring traceability system for cold chain of Tricholoma matsutake

Tricholoma matsutake (T. matsutake) is a special type of fungus known as "the king of bacteria", and has the very high economic value. However, it is also very difficult to transport due to its corruptibility. Therefore, tracing and tracking the quality and safety of T. matsutake in the cold chain is very important and necessary. Based on changes in the cold chain environmental parameters determine the safety of T. matsutake is a viable option. This paper developed and tested a real-time monitoring traceability system (RM-TM) using emerging Internet of Things (IoT) technologies for monitoring the cold chain logistics environmental parameters of T. matsutake. Finally, system testing and evaluation have shown that RM-TM can track and monitor temperature, humidity, oxygen and carbon dioxide fluctuations in the cold chain in real-time. In addition, the collected data can be used to increase the transparency of cold chain logistics and to more effectively control quality, safety, and traceability. In general, the system evaluation results show that it is reliable and meets the requirements of users

New Multidisciplinary Approaches for Reducing Food Waste in Agribusiness Supply Chains

This reprint is a collection of research articles that highlight the achievements of the team of the European project called REAMIT. REAMIT was funded by Interreg North-West Europe and ERDF. The term REAMIT stands for “Improving Resource Efficiency of Agribusiness supply chains by Minimising waste using Big Data and Internet of Things sensors.” The main aim of the REAMIT project was to reduce food waste in agrifood supply chains by using the power of modern, digital technologies (e.g., the Internet of Things (IoT), sensors, big data, cloud computing and analytics). The chapters in this reprint provide detailed information of the activities of the project team.The chapters of this reprint were published as articles in the Special Issue titled ”New Multidisciplinary Approaches for Reducing Food Waste in Agribusiness Supply Chains” published in the journal Sustainability. For ease of readability and flow, the book is divided into four distinct parts.In Part 1, the project members provided a comprehensive review of the existing literature. Part 2 is devoted to the in-depth discussions of the development, adaptation, and applications of these technologies for specific food companies. While the project team worked with a number of food companies including human milk, fresh vegetables and fruits, meat production, this part discusses four different applications.Part 3 presents a detailed analysis of our case studies. A general life-cycle analysis tool for implementing technology for reducing food waste (REAMIT-type activities) is presented in Chapter 7. A specific application of this tool for the case study on a human milk bank is presented in Chapter 8. In Chapter 9, we developed a novel mathematical programming model to identify the conditions when food businesses will prefer the use of modern technologies for helping to reduce food waste.The final part, Part 4, is devoted to summarising learnings from the project and developing some policy-oriented guidelines. Chapter 10 reviews the current state of corporate reporting guidelines for reporting on food waste. Chapter 11 presents the important leanings from the REAMIT project on the motivations for food companies in reducing waste and the associated challenges. Business models are discussed, and some policy guidelines were developed.We gratefully acknowledge the generous funding received from the Interreg North-West Europe for carrying out our activities. The content of Chapter 10 was funded additional funding received from the University of Essex. We believe that the reprint and individual chapters will be of interest to a wide and various audience and will kindle interest in food companies, technology companies, business support organisations, policy-makers and members of the academic community in finding ways to reduce food waste with and without the use of technology