Architecture framework of IoT-based food and farm systems: A multiple case study

The Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to be a real game changer in food and farming. However, an important challenge for large-scale uptake of IoT is to deal with the huge heterogeneity of this domain. This paper develops and applies an architecture framework for modelling IoT-based systems in the agriculture and food domain. The framework comprises a coherent set of architectural viewpoints and a guideline to use these viewpoints to model architectures of individual IoT-based systems. The framework is validated in a multiple case study of the European IoF2020 project, including different agricultural sub sectors, conventional and organic farming, early adopters and early majority farmers, and different supply chain roles. The framework provides a valuable help to model, in a timely, punctual and coherent way, the architecture of IoT-based systems of this diverse set of use cases. Moreover, it serves as a common language for aligning system architectures and enabling reuse of architectural knowledge among multiple autonomous IoT-based systems in agriculture and food

IOF2020: Fostering business and software ecosystems for large-scale uptake of IoT in food and farming

The Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to be a real game changer that will drastically improve productivity and sustainability in food and farming. However, current IoT applications in this domain are still fragmentary and mainly used by a small group of early adopters. The Internet of Food and Farm 2020 Large-Scale Pilot (IoF2020) addresses the organizational and technological challenges to overcome this situation by fostering a large-scale uptake of IoT in the European food and farming domain. The heart of the project is formed by a balanced set of multi-actor trials that reflect the diversity of the food and farming domain. Each trial is composed of well-delineated use cases developing IoT solutions for the most relevant challenges of the concerned subsector. The project conducts 5 trials with a total of 19 use cases in arable, dairy, fruits, vegetables and meat production. IoF2020 embraces a lean multi-actor approach that combines the development of Minimal Viable Products (MVPs) in short iterations with the active involvement of various stakeholders. The architectural approach supports interoperability of multiple use case systems and reuse of IoT components across them. Use cases are also supported in developing business and solving governance issues. The IoF2020 ecosystem and collaboration space is established to boost the uptake of IoT in Food and Farming and pave the way for new innovations

Future Internet as a Driver for Virtualization, Connectivity and Intelligence of Agri-Food Supply Chain Networks

The food and agribusiness is an important sector in European logistics with a share in the EU road transport of about 20%. One of the main logistic challenges in this sector is to deal with the high dynamics and uncertainty in supply and demand. This paper discusses the opportunities of Future Internet (FI) technologies to addresses the specific demands on information systems for logistics in the food and agribusiness domain. More specifically, it presents a Future Internet (FI) based design for smart agri-food logistic information systems. This design aims to enable new types of efficient and responsive logistics networks with flexible chain-encompassing tracking and tracing systems and decision support based on that information. These systems effectively virtualise the logistics flows from farm to fork, support a timely and error-free exchange of logistics information and provide functionality for intelligent analysis and reporting of exchanged data to enable early warning and advanced forecasting

Dynamic capacity provision for wireless sensors connectivity: A profit optimization approach

[EN] We model a wireless sensors' connectivity scenario mathematically and analyze it using capacity provision mechanisms, with the objective of maximizing the profits of a network operator. The scenario has several sensors' clusters with each one having one sink node, which uploads the sensing data gathered in the cluster through the wireless connectivity of a network operator. The scenario is analyzed both as a static game and as a dynamic game, each one with two stages, using game theory. The sinks' behavior is characterized with a utility function related to the mean service time and the price paid to the operator for the service. The objective of the operator is to maximize its profits by optimizing the network capacity. In the static game, the sinks' subscription decision is modeled using a population game. In the dynamic game, the sinks' behavior is modeled using an evolutionary game and the replicator dynamic, while the operator optimal capacity is obtained solving an optimal control problem. The scenario is shown feasible from an economic point of view. In addition, the dynamic capacity provision optimization is shown as a valid mechanism for maximizing the operator profits, as well as a useful tool to analyze evolving scenarios. Finally, the dynamic analysis opens the possibility to study more complex scenarios using the differential game extension.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through project TIN2013-47272-C2-1-R; AEI/FEDER, UE through project TEC2017-85830-C2-1-P; and co-supported by the European Social Fund BES-2014-068998.Sanchis-Cano, Á.; Guijarro, L.; Condoluci, M. (2018). 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Towards Efficient and Scalable Data-Intensive Content Delivery: State-of-the-Art, Issues and Challenges

This chapter presents the authors’ work for the Case Study entitled “Delivering Social Media with Scalability” within the framework of High-Performance Modelling and Simulation for Big Data Applications (cHiPSet) COST Action 1406. We identify some core research areas and give an outline of the publications we came up within the framework of the aforementioned action. The ease of user content generation within social media platforms, e.g. check-in information, multimedia data, etc., along with the proliferation of Global Positioning System (GPS)-enabled, always-connected capture devices lead to data streams of unprecedented amount and a radical change in information sharing. Social data streams raise a variety of practical challenges: derivation of real-time meaningful insights from effectively gathered social information, a paradigm shift for content distribution with the leverage of contextual data associated with user preferences, geographical characteristics and devices in general, etc. In this article we present the methodology we followed, the results of our work and the outline of a comprehensive survey, that depicts the state-of-the-art situation and organizes challenges concerning social media streams and the infrastructure of the data centers supporting the efficient access to data streams in terms of content distribution, data diffusion, data replication, energy efficiency and network infrastructure. The challenges of enabling better provisioning of social media data have been identified and they were based on the context of users accessing these resources. The existing literature has been systematized and the main research points and industrial efforts in the area were identified and analyzed. In our works, in the framework of the Action, we came up with potential solutions addressing the problems of the area and described how these fit in the general ecosystem

Dynamic Business Collaboration in Supply Chains with Future Internet technologies : Acceleration of SME-driven App Development

The European Future Internet Initiative, called FIWARE, targets in its final and third phase at acceleration of Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SME). The ‘FInish’ accelerator provides grants for realisation of intelligent systems and specifically business to business (B2B) oriented apps for supply chains of perishable products such as food and flowers. In general, new ways to facilitate seamless B2B collaboration in complex supply chains and networks are searched for. This shall provide benefits for diverse actors as well as directly or indirectly deliver benefits for consumers. The available grants will be available to software developing entrepreneurs and SMEs that are making use of Future Internet and IoT related technological enablers as well as develop solutions that are realising innovations for dynamic business collaboration to ease and speed-up the collaboration set-up as well as facilitate participation in new regional, horizontal, and vertical collaboration at minimal costs

Identifying the ICT challenges of the Agri-Food sector to define the Architectural Requirements for a Future Internet Core Platform

This paper discusses the specific challenges of the agri-food sector in the light of research carried out in the SmartAgriFood project. Using questionnaires and focus groups, our research identifies a number of business needs and drivers which enable the identification of suitable Future Internet technologies across the three sub-domains of Smart Farming, Smart Agri-logistics, and Smart Food Awareness. The universal need for information access and the importance of standards to enable this lead us to propose an integrated scenario for end to end information access from farm to fork. We conclude by discussing wider implications of such developments especially for climate change and urbanisation

Smart Agri-Food Logistics: Requirements for the Future Internet

The food and agribusiness is an important sector in European logistics with a share in the EU road transport of about 20 %. One of the main logistic challenges in this sector is to deal with the high dynamics and uncertainty in supply and demand. This paper defines requirements on Future Internet (FI) technologies that have to be met to accomplish the specific challenges of agri-food logistics. It identifies a set of generic technical enablers as input for the realisation of a FI core platform. This technology foundation is to be developed and tested in a Future Internet public–private partnership (FI-PPP) environment of over 150 organisations