Performance Assessment of a Wireless Mesh Network for Post-harvest Food Quality Traceability of Fruit Products: A Case Study

Abstract

This paper presents the performance evaluation of a wireless sensor mesh network, for monitoring temperature and humidity in horticultural products when transported in truck galleys. For this purpose a software solution was proposed using ESP8266 devices powered by batteries. The mesh network was managed by the painlessMesh library. The proposed solution aims to minimize the energy consumption of the sensor nodes. The validation of the solution was performed in an area simulating a galley of a truck, where five sensor nodes and a root node were distributed. The tests were developed considering four different models involving variations in messages delivery confirmation, number of attempts until successful delivery and duty cycle duration of the nodes. The performance evaluation of the solution aimed to determine, connectivity rate, sending rate after connection and delivery rates of the first and second attempts. The results obtained show that the message delivery confirmation does not bring added value to the solution, contributing only to increase energy consumption. The use of synchronous duty cycles also showed worse results than the asynchronous use. These results allow the creation of a knowledge base for the use of this solution in a real context.