Analysis of the future internet of things capabilities for continuous temperature monitoring of blood bags in terrestrial logistic systems

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis for the challenges and opportunities for the definition of a solution for traceability, tracking and monitoring based on Future Internet of Things to transport of goods, which require an item-level continuous monitoring solution, such as the case of perishable goods, food, medicines and dangerous goods due to the specific needs of these products in terms of environment status (humidity, lighting and temperature) during the transport, in order to preserve its integrity before, during and after the transport process. For that reason, this work describes a particular use case focused on the implementation of the solution for careful monitoring of blood bags, since this requires the communication with the items in order to control the temperature in the bags to detect that it has not been out of range, and control during the transport the temperature in the trailer in order to avoid that situation. This analysis is based on the Internet of Things to support global connectivity through the Future Internet for each one of the items, and on the Web of Things to support the monitoring of the item status and access to services at anytime during the transportation of goods through Embedded Web Services (RESTful). © 2011 Springer-Verlag.