Advantech's cold chain management solution facilitates temperature and humidity monitoring of cryogenic logistics

In recent years, many companies have invested heavily in third-party logistics, in addition to warehousing, fleet construction, temperature and humidity monitoring throughout the process, but also related to the success of the huge investment amount. In the past, low-temperature logistics monitoring mostly relied on wired equipment with manual recording and cloud transmission, but now there are wireless monitoring devices developed with LoRA technology (i.e., Long Range, a communication technology that can carry out long-distance communication under low power consumption), and can be uploaded to the cloud, which can be called the star of tomorrow in the future.

High-quality agricultural products rely on low-temperature logistics monitoring

The cold chain industry, like the standard of living, is developing upward. However, the cold chain industry involves a variety of different journeys, and items will go through the process of origin, processing, storage, transportation, warehousing, distribution, etc., and then be delivered to consumers and customers. Consumers can see the temperature and humidity monitoring at the end in the cold storage of general hypermarkets and supermarkets, and there may be manual records on the side. But what the public is not clear about is that there are quite a lot of breakpoints, so even if high-quality agricultural products are exported, there are still occasional "black-hearted" and "rotten" news.

In terms of the current market method, there are four types: thermometer with pure manual transcription, wired sensor with manual transcription, wired sensor with cloud upload, wireless sensor with cloud upload. Advantech's product manager of smart logistics solutions, Kaixiang Yang, said that the wired monitoring method is less costly, but it is more troublesome to maintain. Fifteen years ago, the industry was already experimenting with wireless sensors, and it was not until the maturity of the Internet of Things technology in recent years that it was possible to achieve wireless monitoring of temperature and humidity, oil, electricity and water, and even air quality, and to know whether the temperature exceeded the standard through the cloud.

In the past, Bluetooth communication technology was also tried to be used in monitoring equipment, but general wireless mice, TVs, and smart wearable devices also used this frequency band, so there was a lot of noise. Although Wi-Fi has fast transmission speeds, it cannot penetrate walls and consumes more power, while 5G has concerns about signal exhaustion. Therefore, the advent of LoRA has become a solution to the cold chain temperature and humidity monitoring.

LoRA has the advantages of not being hindered by walls, ultra-long-distance transmission, and low power consumption, and the roadside smart parking system in Taichung City uses this wireless transmission technology to upload the parking time to the cloud, and the public can go to the supermarket with the receipt to know the parking fee, saving a lot of manpower.

Advantech's cold chain management solution facilitates temperature and humidity monitoring of cryogenic logistics

　　Advantech's cold chain management solution uses this technology. Advantech's cold chain management is the entire cold chain management throughout the entire process, whether it is manufacturing, transportation, warehousing, stores, pharmacies and hospitals, it can be recorded and managed. By simply installing Advantech's temperature and humidity sensor TREK-120 at the corresponding point, the data can be sent to the USM-S62 gateway via LoRa, and the gateway uploads the data to the cloud in real time through the network. Managers can receive instant alerts via browser or email and monitor the status of the entire cold chain product. According to the user's needs, you can choose two different system architectures: private cloud or public cloud.

LoRA technology helps in the cold chain management of fruits

In addition to the field of people's livelihood consumption, Yang Kaixiang pointed out that many bulk materials are transported by ship, and the shipping period can be as little as one month or as long as three months. And more importantly, how to prove the attribution of responsibility for chain breaking?

At present, wireless sensors can not only transmit temperature and humidity data, but also store relevant data in the device. When the goods arrive at their destination, they can be taken out to check the low temperature break point of the batch of goods, without arguing with the shipping company. Yang Kaixiang shared his own experience that many shipping companies will be more careful in handling goods after learning that shippers have installed wireless sensors, and even deliberately choose new vehicles to transport them.

Whether it is the use of low-cost manual transcription or the efficient and costly wireless sensing, the industry has shifted from cost considerations to quality considerations. It is understood that at present, in addition to high-end operators, restaurants and hypermarkets also plan to gradually replace them with wireless monitoring; Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and other manufacturers have also approached Advantech for wireless sensing equipment.

The rapid development of the cold chain industry reflects the changes of the times, and the emphasis on food after the improvement of living standards has also prompted the industry to move towards a new wave of upgrading.

Advantech's LoRa temperature and humidity sensor TREK-120 is now fully available, click "Read the original article" at the end of this article to get the product specification sheet, if you need to order, please contact your local Advantech business.

　TREK-120 Temperature and Humidity Sensor

LoRa technology is used for efficient wireless remote transmission

Sensors can be configured to trigger alarms for real-time management

It can be installed quickly and easily in all types of refrigerated trucks

IP65 rated for water and dust resistance

Support IoT cloud services to achieve centralized and real-time exception management

Long-lasting battery (up to 36 months) (depending on the specific scenario)

It can be used with LoRa gateway USM-S62 or USM-S66

Advantech's cold chain management solution facilitates temperature and humidity monitoring of cryogenic logistics

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