A Measuring System for the Assurance of the Cold-Chain Integrity

This work deals with a measuring system that is specifically designed for monitoring temperature-sensitive goods during their distribution, with the aim to conform to the cold-chain assurance requirements. The measurement problems and the constraints that are met in this application are initially highlighted, then an architecture is proposed that takes such problems into account. The proposed architecture is based on measuring nodes that are integrated into the goods, in order to identify their behavior in real operating conditions, e.g. during a typical distribution path. The measuring nodes communicates through a wireless channel with a base station, that plays the role of data concentrator and processing unit. Preliminary experimental results have been obtained that have shown the feasibility of the proposed solution and that have provided useful information for the design of the whole system.