Aguzzi, Jacopo

Antonio García, José

Antonucci, Francesca

Boglione, Clara

Cataudella, Stefano

Costa, Corrado

D'Ambra, Roberto

Manuel Lázaro, Antonio

Menesatti, Paolo

Rampacci, Massimo

Río Fernandez, Joaquín del

Sardá, Francesc

Sarriá Gandul, David

Sbragaglia, Valerio

English

Costa, C

Aguzzi, J

Menesatti, P

Mànuel, A

Boglione, C

Sarriá, D

García, J

Sardà, F

del Río, J

Antonucci, F

Sbragaglia, V

Rampacci, M

D’Ambra, R

Cataudella, S

Cineca Institutional Research Information System

Versatile application of RFID technology to commercial and laboratory research contexts: fresh fish supply-chain and behavioural tests

RFID is an innovative information technology that potentially allows attaining massive amounts of data. It can be used for traceability of goods trough the different stages of the production chain, as well as in behavioural sciences to track different animals within a group. In this work we provide two examples related to commercial and behavioural study sectors. We firstly applied RFID technology to edible goods supply chain. That application consisted in using tags along the high commercial value supply-chain of fresh fish. The second application consisted in the tracking of behavioural locomotor activity in commercially important crustaceans. In the laboratory, a microcosm tank was endowed with set of RFID controllers below it, each handling group readers in order to contemporarily track four Norway lobsters (Nephrops norvegicus).Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Ambra, Roberto D'

García, José Antonio

Sardà Amills, Francesc

UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC

Versatile application of RFID technology to commercial and laboratory research contexts: fresh fish supply-chain and behavioural tests  Corrado Costa1, Jacopo Aguzzi2, Paolo Menesatti1, Antoni Mànuel3, Clara Boglione4, David Sarriá3, José Antonio García2, Francesc Sardà1, Joaquin del Río3, Francesca Antonucci1, Valerio Sbragaglia2, Massimo Rampacci5, Roberto D’Ambra5, Stefano Cataudella4  1 CRA-ING (Agricultural Engineering Research Unit of the Agriculture Research Council), Via della Pascolare, 16-00015 Monterotondo (Rome), Italy 2 Instituto de Ciencias del Mar (ICM-CSIC), Paseo Marítimo de la Barceloneta, 37-49, 08003 Barcelona, Spain 3 SARTI Research Group. Electronics Dept. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). Rambla de la Exposición 24, 08800 Vilanova i la Geltrú-Barcelona, Spain 4 Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata”, via della Ricerca Scientifica snc, 00133 Rome, Italy 5 A.Ge.I. Soc. Coop. Rome, Italy  Abstract – RFID is an innovative information technology that potentially allows attaining massive amounts of data. It can be used for traceability of goods trough the different stages of the production chain, as well as in behavioural sciences to track different animals within a group. In this work we provide two examples related to commercial and behavioural study sectors. We firstly applied RFID technology to edible goods supply chain. That application consisted in using tags along the high commercial value supply-chain of fresh fish. The second application consisted in the tracking of behavioural locomotor activity in commercially important crustaceans. In the laboratory, a microcosm tank was endowed with set of RFID controllers below it, each handling group readers in order to contemporarily track four Norway lobsters (Nephrops norvegicus).  Keywords – RFID, Fish supply-chain, Laboratory applications, Nephrops norvegicus, Burrowing rhythms  I. INTRODUCTION  RFID is an innovative ICT tool that allows attaining massive amounts of data in productive commercial sectors such as for example supplies, inventory, customer service, and machinery. Basic RFID system is composed by an antenna, an integrated circuit, a reader that gathers information from the id tag, and finally by a database system that is used to store the information gained through interrogating the id tag [1]. RFID technologies have gained significant interest for supply-chain industries and academics in recent years [2]. Tags advantage consists in its memory storage capacity, saving data in relation for example to the product identification number, price, cost, characteristics, manufacture date, location, and inventory on hand. The traceability of fresh food, such as fish has become a challenging and important aspect in order to keep freshness and costumers safety. Due to a high number of product variants, strict traceability requirements and the need for temperature control in the supply chain are therefore crucial aspects [32].  RFID technology can be also used to quantify several traits of animals’ behaviour, with potential application to marine organism of commercial interest. Presently, laboratory applications are scant for technical difficulties of propagating radio waves within the marine medium.  Although the RFID is an ICT well developed tool, its potential applications has to be investigated inside specific niche sectors in terms of efficiency and economic sustainability. In this context, we tested the RFID technology in two very different sectors: the fresh fish supply-chain and in the laboratory, with behavioural tests on groups of commercially important crustaceans (i.e., the Norway lobster, Nephrops norvegicus).   II. MATERIALS AND METHODS  The application of RFID technology was experimented on the fresh fish supply-chain (Fig. 1). A total number of 8 fish (> 1.5 kg each) of five different species of high economic value (i.e., Merluccius merluccius, Euthynnus alletteratus, Dentex dentex, Sparus aurata, Trigla lucerna) was tagged on the operculum and followed along the supply chain. The tags used operated at 13.56 MHz with unique identification data and rewritable memory. Testing time (h)  Figure 1: A. Application of a RFID tag on the operculum of Sparus aurata. B. Inquiring RFID tag at the local fish market.  The information (i.e., time, place, species) linked to each single fish/tag was recorded along the supply-chain on the fishing boat, local fish market and fish shop (Fig. 2). An encoding and inquiring unit for RFID tags (Psion Teklogix WorkAbout Pro G2) and a desk read/write unit (MB50) linked to a portable PC via USB were used.  Laboratory tests were conducted within a microcosm tank (150 x 70 x 30 cm) recreating the habitat medium of Nephrops. A distributed system made by 6 controllers each receiving the signal of seven antennas was placed below the tank bottom and connected to a PC storing the spatial information on animals positioning by minute. Four adults were tagged on their telson by a passive RFID transponder (13.56 MHz). Animals were exposed to 12-h light-darkness cycle (10 Lux).   III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION  The application of passive RFID tags on fish opercula evidenced the necessity to engineer a specific system to tag fish of large size in an easier and firm way. Along all the supply-chain, tags were always readable. Difficulties of reading were found in relation with the proximity of tags with readers. Archived information in a database resulted efficient and useful also for a potential evolution through a shared web-based system with all the supply-chain (Fig. 2). The economic sustainability resulted positive for fish with high commercial value.    Figure 2: Software interface: the upper side represents the read/write part of the database. The lower part represents the query on database (i.e. the supply chain).  In relation to behavioural tracking of Nephrops specimens, we could follow their movement as displaced centimetres by unit of time, through days in an individualized fashion (Fig. 3). We observed a variable nocturnal activity across days in some of the tested animals.   Figure 3: Time series of RFID locomotor data reported during 8 consecutive days for two individuals as an example.  Animals’ movements could be also traced to space in a continuous fashion (Fig. 4).                    Figure 4: Displacement trajectories reported for two individuals as an example (i.e. those of Figure 3) during 8 days of testing.  The developed RFID system allowed tracking behavioural rhythms at a resolution of centimetres. Its distributed topology design offered great flexibility, allowing the potential for an easily surface expansion if needed, by simply connecting to the USB ports new controllers with antennas.  IV. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS  This work was funded by the projects “Sistemi innovativi per la tracciabilità della filiera ittica” (DM 2278 – 29/12/2006) from the Italian Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Politics and Laboratory developments were funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN; NORIT Project, CTM20055-02034/MAR). Dr. Jacopo Aguzzi is a Fellow of the Ramon y Cajal Program (MICINN). Part of this work is the result of the stage of Dr. Corrado Costa at the ICM-CSIC (Barcelona – Spain).  V. REFERENCES  [1] Roberts, C. M. (2006). "Radio frequency identification (RFID)." Computers & Security 25(1): 18-26. [2] Sarac A, Absi N, Dauzère-Pérès S, 2010. A literature review on the impact of RFID technologies on supply chain management. Int. J. Production Economics, 128:77–95. [3] Tingman W, Jian Z, Xiaoshuan Z., 2010. Fish product quality evaluation based on temperature monitoring in cold chain. African Journal of Biotechnology, 9(37): 6146-6151. 

RFID is an innovative information technology that potentially allows attaining massive amounts of data. It can be used for traceability of goods trough the different stages of the production chain, as well as in behavioural sciences to track different animals within a group. In this work we provide two examples related to commercial and behavioural study sectors. We firstly applied RFID technology to edible goods supply chain. That application consisted in using tags along the high commercial value supply-chain of fresh fish. The second application consisted in the tracking of behavioural locomotor activity in commercially important crustaceans. In the laboratory, a microcosm tank was endowed with set of RFID controllers below it, each handling group readers in order to contemporarily track four Norway lobsters (Nephrops norvegicus)

Mànuel, A

Sarriá, D

García, JA

Sardà, F

del Río, J

BOGLIONE, CLARA

CATAUDELLA, STEFANO

RFID is an innovative information technology that potentially allows attaining massive amounts of data. It can be used for traceability of goods trough the different stages of the production chain, as well as in behavioural sciences to track different animals within a group. In this work we provide two examples related to commercial and behavioural study sectors. We firstly applied RFID technology to edible goods supply chain. That application consisted in using tags along the high commercial value supply-chain of fresh fish. The second application consisted in the tracking of behavioural locomotor activity in commercially important crustaceans. In the laboratory, a microcosm tank was endowed with set of RFID controllers below it, each handling group readers in order to contemporarily track four Norway lobsters (Nephrops norvegicus).Peer Reviewe

UPCommons

Instrumentation Viewpoint/11/ MARTECH11 48Abstract – RFID is an innovative information technology that allows the ability to attain massive amounts of data. It can be used for traceability of good trough the different production stages as well as in behavioural sciences to identify different animals within a group. In this work we summarized two different sectors where this system could be developed. The first concerning the application of such tech-nology to fresh fish supply chain, the second concern a laboratory application for the study of behaviour in laboratory held crustaceans of commercial importance (i.e. the Norway lobster, Nephrops norvegicus). The presented application of RFID to fresh fish supply chain consisted in the application of RFID tags along the fresh fish supply-chain of high commercial value. In the laboratory, a system of distributed architecture made by a microcosm tank with set of RFID controllers below it, each handling a group of seven readers in order to contemporarily portrait the behaviour of up to four individuals.Keywords – RFID, fish supply chain, Laboratory applications, Nephrops norvegicus, Burrowing rhythmsINtrODUCtIONRFID is an innovative ICT tool that allows the ability to attain massive amounts of data related to products, supplies, inventory, customer service, and machinery. Basic RFID system is composed by an antenna, an integrated circuit, a reader that gathers information from the id tag, and finally by a database system that is used to store the information gained through interrogating the id tag [1]. RFID technologies have gained significant interest from supply-chain industries and academics in recent years [2]. Tags advantage consists in its memory storage ca-pacity, saving data in relation for example to the product identification number, price, cost, characteristics, manufacture date, location, and inventory on hand. The traceability of fresh food chain, such as the fish one has become crucial, challenging and important to keep fish product safety due to a high number of product variants, strict traceability requirements from the customer and the need for temperature control in the supply chain [32]. Marine RFID laboratory applications are scant for technical difficulties of propa-gating radio waves within the marine medium. Anyway, radio tracking devices can be used to quantify several traits of animals’ behaviour, with potential ap-plication to marine organism of commercial interest. Although the RFID is an ICT tool well developed, the potential applications of this technology are already to be investigated inside specific niche sectors in term of efficiency, efficacy and economic sustainability. In this context, we tested the RFID technology in two very different sectors: the fresh fish supply chain and the laboratory, with behavioural tests with groups of commercially important crustaceans (the Norway lobster, Nephrops norvegicus). MAtErIALS AND MEtHODSThe application of RFID technology was experimented on the fresh fish supply-chain. A total number of 8 fish (> 1.5 kg each) of 5 different species of elevate economic value (Merluccius merluccius, Euthynnus alletteratus, Dentex dentex, Sparus aurata, Trigla lucerna) was tagged on the operculum and followed along the supply chain. The tags used was RFID HF 13,56 Mhz with unique identifica-tion data and rewritable memory. An encoding and inquiring unit for RFID tags (Psion Teklogix WorkAbout Pro G2) and a desk read/write unit (MB50) linked to a portable PC via USB was used. The information (time, place, species, additional information) linked to each single fish/tag was recorded along the supply-chain on the fishing boat, local fish market and fish shop.Laboratory tests were conducted under 12-h light-darkness cycle (10 Lux) in a microcosm tank (150 x 70 x 30 cm) recreating the habitat medium of Nephrops. Four adults were tagged on their telson by a passive RFID transponder (13.56 MHz). A distributed system made by 6 controllers each receiving the signal of seven antennas was connected to a PC storing the spatial information on ani-mals positioning by minute. rESULtS AND DISCUSSIONThe application of passive RFID tags on fish opercula evidenced the necessity to engineer a specific system to tag fish of large size in an easier and firm way. Along all the supply-chain, tags have been always readable; difficulties of read-ing were found in relation with the proximity of tags with readers. Information archival on a database resulted efficient and useful also for a potential evolution through a shared web-based system with all the supply-chain. The economic sustainability resulted positive only for fish with high commercial value raising also the satisfaction of both consumers and intermediate users.We observed a variable nocturnal activity across days in the tested animals. Total activity varied over consecutive days. We also observed inter-individual differ-ences in expressed overall activity. Those behavioural differences across-days in the same animal or among different animals within the same test group could be ascribed to the presence of strong territorial aggressive behaviour. ACkNOWLEDgEMENtSThis work was funded by the projects “Sistemi innovativi per la tracciabilità della filiera ittica” (DM 2278 – 29/12/2006) from the Italian Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Politics and Laboratory developments were funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN; NORIT Project, CTM20055-02034/MAR). Dr. Jacopo Aguzzi is a Fellow of the Ramon y Cajal Scheme (MI-CINN). Part of this work is the result of the stage of Dr. Corrado Costa at the ICM-CSIC (Barcelona – Spain).REFERENCES[1] Roberts, C. M. (2006). “Radio frequency identification (RFID).” Computers & Secu-rity 25(1): 18-26.[2] Sarac A, Absi N, Dauzère-Pérès S, 2010. A literature review on the impact of RFID technologies on supply chain management. Int. J. Production Economics, 128:77–95.[3] Tingman W, Jian Z, Xiaoshuan Z., 2010. Fish product quality evaluation based on temperature monitoring in cold chain. African Journal of Biotechnology, 9(37): 6146-6151.Corrado Costa1, Jacopo Aguzzi2, Paolo Menesatti1, Antoni Mànuel3, Clara boglione4, david Sarriá3, José Antonio garcía2, Francesc Sardà1, Joaquin del Río3, Francesca Antonucci1, Valerio Sbragaglia2, Massimo Rampacci5, Roberto d’Ambra5, Stefano Cataudella41 CRA-INg (Agricultural Engineering Research Unit of the Agriculture Research Council), Via della Pascolare, 16-00015 Monterotondo (Rome), Italy2 Instituto de Ciencias del Mar (ICM-CSIC), Paseo Marítimo de la barceloneta, 37-49, 08003 barcelona, Spain3 SARTI Research group. Electronics dept. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). Rambla de la Exposición 24, 08800 Vilanova i la geltrú-barcelona, Spain4 dipartimento di biologia, Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata”, via della Ricerca Scientifica snc, 00133 Rome, Italy5 A.ge.I. Soc. Coop. Rome, ItalyPg. Marítim de la barceloneta, 37-49, barcelona (Spain)Telephone: (+34) 932309500, fax: (+34) 932309555, [http://coo.icm.csic.es, http://www.utm.csic.es]VERSATIlE APPlICATION OF RFId TECHNOlOgY TO COMMER-CIAl ANd lAbORATORY RESEARCH CONTExTS: FRESH FISH SUPPlY-CHAIN ANd bEHAVIOURAl TESTS

Versatile Application of rfid technology to commercial and laboratory research contexts: fresh fish supply-chain and behavioural tests

Archivio della Ricerca - Università di Roma Tor vergata

Versatile application of RFID technology to commercial and laboratory research 
contexts: fresh fish supply-chain and behavioural tests 
 
Corrado Costa
1
, Jacopo Aguzzi
2
, Paolo Menesatti
1
, Antoni Mànuel
3
, Clara Boglione
4
, David Sarriá
3
, 
José Antonio García
2
, Francesc Sardà
1
, Joaquin del Río
3
, Francesca Antonucci
1
, Valerio Sbragaglia
2
, 
Massimo Rampacci
5
, Roberto D’Ambra5, Stefano Cataudella4 
 
1
 CRA-ING (Agricultural Engineering Research Unit of the Agriculture Research Council), Via della Pascolare, 16-00015 
Monterotondo (Rome), Italy 
2
 Instituto de Ciencias del Mar (ICM-CSIC), Paseo Marítimo de la Barceloneta, 37-49, 08003 Barcelona, Spain 
3
 SARTI Research Group. Electronics Dept. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). Rambla de la Exposición 24, 
08800 Vilanova i la Geltrú-Barcelona, Spain 
4
 Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata”, via della Ricerca Scientifica snc, 00133 Rome, 
Italy 
5
 A.Ge.I. Soc. Coop. Rome, Italy 
 
Abstract – RFID is an innovative information technology that 
potentially allows attaining massive amounts of data. It can be 
used for traceability of goods trough the different stages of the 
production chain, as well as in behavioural sciences to track 
different animals within a group. In this work we provide two 
examples related to commercial and behavioural study sectors. 
We firstly applied RFID technology to edible goods supply chain. 
That application consisted in using tags along the high 
commercial value supply-chain of fresh fish. The second 
application consisted in the tracking of behavioural locomotor 
activity in commercially important crustaceans. In the laboratory, 
a microcosm tank was endowed with set of RFID controllers 
below it, each handling group readers in order to contemporarily 
track four Norway lobsters (Nephrops norvegicus). 
 
Keywords – RFID, Fish supply-chain, Laboratory applications, 
Nephrops norvegicus, Burrowing rhythms 
 
I. INTRODUCTION 
 
RFID is an innovative ICT tool that allows 
attaining massive amounts of data in productive 
commercial sectors such as for example supplies, 
inventory, customer service, and machinery. 
Basic RFID system is composed by an antenna, 
an integrated circuit, a reader that gathers 
information from the id tag, and finally by a 
database system that is used to store the 
information gained through interrogating the id 
tag [1]. RFID technologies have gained 
significant interest for supply-chain industries 
and academics in recent years [2]. Tags 
advantage consists in its memory storage 
capacity, saving data in relation for example to 
the product identification number, price, cost, 
characteristics, manufacture date, location, and 
inventory on hand. The traceability of fresh food, 
such as fish has become a challenging and 
important aspect in order to keep freshness and 
costumers safety. Due to a high number of 
product variants, strict traceability requirements 
and the need for temperature control in the 
supply chain are therefore crucial aspects [32].  
RFID technology can be also used to quantify 
several traits of animals’ behaviour, with 
potential application to marine organism of 
commercial interest. Presently, laboratory 
applications are scant for technical difficulties of 
propagating radio waves within the marine 
medium.  
Although the RFID is an ICT well developed 
tool, its potential applications has to be 
investigated inside specific niche sectors in terms 
of efficiency and economic sustainability. In this 
context, we tested the RFID technology in two 
very different sectors: the fresh fish supply-chain 
and in the laboratory, with behavioural tests on 
groups of commercially important crustaceans 
(i.e., the Norway lobster, Nephrops norvegicus).  
 
II. MATERIALS AND METHODS 
 
The application of RFID technology was 
experimented on the fresh fish supply-chain (Fig. 
1). A total number of 8 fish (> 1.5 kg each) of 
five different species of high economic value 
(i.e., Merluccius merluccius, Euthynnus 
alletteratus, Dentex dentex, Sparus aurata, Trigla 
lucerna) was tagged on the operculum and 
followed along the supply chain. The tags used 
operated at 13.56 MHz with unique identification 
data and rewritable memory. 
Testing time (h)
 
 
Figure 1: A. Application of a RFID tag on the operculum of Sparus 
aurata. B. Inquiring RFID tag at the local fish market. 
 
The information (i.e., time, place, species) linked 
to each single fish/tag was recorded along the 
supply-chain on the fishing boat, local fish 
market and fish shop (Fig. 2). An encoding and 
inquiring unit for RFID tags (Psion Teklogix 
WorkAbout Pro G2) and a desk read/write unit 
(MB50) linked to a portable PC via USB were 
used.  
Laboratory tests were conducted within a 
microcosm tank (150 x 70 x 30 cm) recreating 
the habitat medium of Nephrops. A distributed 
system made by 6 controllers each receiving the 
signal of seven antennas was placed below the 
tank bottom and connected to a PC storing the 
spatial information on animals positioning by 
minute. Four adults were tagged on their telson 
by a passive RFID transponder (13.56 MHz). 
Animals were exposed to 12-h light-darkness 
cycle (10 Lux).  
 
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 
 
The application of passive RFID tags on fish 
opercula evidenced the necessity to engineer a 
specific system to tag fish of large size in an 
easier and firm way. Along all the supply-chain, 
tags were always readable. Difficulties of reading 
were found in relation with the proximity of tags 
with readers. Archived information in a database 
resulted efficient and useful also for a potential 
evolution through a shared web-based system 
with all the supply-chain (Fig. 2). The economic 
sustainability resulted positive for fish with high 
commercial value. 
 
 
 
Figure 2: Software interface: the upper side represents the read/write part 
of the database. The lower part represents the query on database (i.e. the 
supply chain). 
 
In relation to behavioural tracking of Nephrops 
specimens, we could follow their movement as 
displaced centimetres by unit of time, through 
days in an individualized fashion (Fig. 3). We 
observed a variable nocturnal activity across days 
in some of the tested animals.  
 
Figure 3: Time series of RFID locomotor data reported during 8 
consecutive days for two individuals as an example. 
 
Animals’ movements could be also traced to 
space in a continuous fashion (Fig. 4). 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Figure 4: Displacement trajectories reported for two individuals as an 
example (i.e. those of Figure 3) during 8 days of testing. 
 
The developed RFID system allowed tracking 
behavioural rhythms at a resolution of 
centimetres. Its distributed topology design 
offered great flexibility, allowing the potential 
for an easily surface expansion if needed, by 
simply connecting to the USB ports new 
controllers with antennas. 
 
IV. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
 
This work was funded by the projects “Sistemi 
innovativi per la tracciabilità della filiera ittica” 
(DM 2278 – 29/12/2006) from the Italian 
Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry 
Politics and Laboratory developments were 
funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and 
Innovation (MICINN; NORIT Project, 
CTM20055-02034/MAR). Dr. Jacopo Aguzzi is 
a Fellow of the Ramon y Cajal Program 
(MICINN). Part of this work is the result of the 
stage of Dr. Corrado Costa at the ICM-CSIC 
(Barcelona – Spain). 
 
V. REFERENCES 
 
[1] Roberts, C. M. (2006). "Radio frequency identification (RFID)." 
Computers & Security 25(1): 18-26. 
[2] Sarac A, Absi N, Dauzère-Pérès S, 2010. A literature review on the 
impact of RFID technologies on supply chain management. Int. J. 
Production Economics, 128:77–95. 
[3] Tingman W, Jian Z, Xiaoshuan Z., 2010. Fish product quality 
evaluation based on temperature monitoring in cold chain. African Journal 
of Biotechnology, 9(37): 6146-6151. 


Versatile Application of rfid technology to commercial and laboratory research contexts: fresh fish supply-chain and behavioural tests

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