Field Experiment of an Extendable Traceability System: Application to the Quality Control of Beef-Product Distribution

The aim of this research is to contribute to quality management of food products by realizing a traceability system using sensor network and RFID technology. We clarified requirements on system scalability, independence of each distribution process, and network infrastructure with consideration of meat product distribution in Japan. Four mechanisms were developed to satisfy these requirements: IPv6 Sensor Tag, Context Composition, Linked Object Traceability, and Plug and Play Service. In addition, the mechanisms were examined by constructing a traceability system and by applying it to a real Beef product distribution. Two field experiments have been done in two years. Through the field experiments, we confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed four mechanisms by tracing ten cows with about fifty sensor tags.