Semi-passive RFID and beyond: steps towards automated quality tracing in the food chain

Precise temperature monitoring is the major precondition to supervise quality losses within the transport chain for fresh products. Different types of miniaturised data loggers with electrical and semi-passive RFID interface were compared and applied to record spatial temperature profiles for typical transport situations. The resulting effects of the found temperature variations were evaluated by mathematical shelf-life modelling. Wireless sensor networks with active communication offer permanent access to sensor condition but entail higher system costs. Different approaches for implementation of integrated quality assessment will be discussed using a concept for shelf-life calculation on RFID-level and the intelligent container as demonstrator for an automated transport supervision system.