A Service-Oriented Auto Managed System For Transportation Applications

Abstract

In this paper we summarize our work on the design of an auto-managed system for the tracking and location of products in transportation routes. Manufacturers, retailers and customers require tracking of goods in production and distribution lines. Companies usually control the quality of their production during the manufacturing phase, but products can also be controlled along the distribution and transportation phases, before they are delivered to customers. A service-oriented four-layer system is proposed in order to provide an efficient solution for the Real-Time Monitoring (RTM) of goods. Several Web Services are defined, so that customers can easily access information about the shipment of their orders. Finally, a sample Web Application is developed to access those Web Services.

Full text

A Service-Oriented Auto Managed System For Transportation Applications
José I. San Jose, R. Zangróniz, Juan J. de Dios, José M. Pastor
Institute of Audiovisual Technologies (http://itav.uclm.es)
University of Castilla-La Mancha, Campus Universitario, 16071
Cuenca, Spain
{JoseIvan.SanJose, Roberto.Zangroniz, JuanJose.deDios, JoseManuel.Pastor}@uclm.es
Abstract — In this paper we summarize our work on the design
of an auto-managed system for the tracking and location of
products in transportation routes. Manufacturers, retailers
and customers require tracking of goods in production and
distribution lines. Companies usually control the quality of
their production during the manufacturing phase, but
products can also be controlled along the distribution and
transportation phases, before they are delivered to customers.
A service-oriented four-layer system is proposed in order to
provide an efficient solution for the Real-Time Monitoring
(RTM) of goods. Several Web Services are defined, so that
customers can easily access information about the shipment of
their orders. Finally, a sample Web Application is developed to
access those Web Services.
Keywords-component; Web Services, RFID, WSN, GPRS,
location, transportation.
I. INTRODUCTION
In the dynamic and ever changing world we are living in,
companies, which are able to deliver products in a faster and
better way, will be more likely to success. Tracking of each
unit of product should be performed during the
manufacturing and distribution phases, and the exact location
and the environmental conditions of each product can be
determined at any time.
This is a critical issue, in particular, when the process
involves handling special loads. The specific properties of
this type of products, such as fragile or perishable goods and
whose quality needs to be preserved, mostly requires that the
productive process is carried out in a location where all the
units can be completely controlled.
A good implementation consists of using Radio
Frequency Identification (RFID) technology within the
whole process, not only for the production and distribution
lines during manufacturing. RFID is one of the most
innovative technologies for meeting customer and business
needs, so it can be highly profitable in object location and
identification.
The traceability and the tracking of products can be
implemented in an economic way by means of RFID
technology [1]. It can benefit consumers through improved
product availability, speed of service, and quality insurance.
The application of RFID technology helps businesses
improve supply chain efficiency, generating a high added
value by improving the distribution process and optimizing
the available resources [2].
The Electronic Product Code (EPC) is a unique
identification code that is generally thought of as the next
generation of the standard bar code [3]. It is stored on an
RFID tag and enables us to assign a unique global number to
some product. Therefore EPC can be associated to specific
product information, such as manufacturing date, origin and
destination of the shipment.
By means of this technology, a major reduction in the
time required for processing of orders is achieved, and the
errors in the ordering system are also minimized. Products
are received from the manufacturers, for example, in pallets
or containers and in the picking tasks non-homogeneous
loads are obtained by combining different products required
by any type of store [4].
This improvement in the traceability and tracking of
special loads is not only available for companies, but for the
customers too. In this way, the customer is able to know the
real-time status of the product after its delivery, as well as its
geographical location. Besides, it is easier to allocate the
responsibilities when they are damaged or altered during the
distribution phases, when real-time monitoring of products is
provided to the customer.
Our goal is to implement an RFID-based development
deployed at four different layers. An RFID system which is
able to support passive RFID tags and WSN (Wireless
Sensor Network) nodes, and managed by a middleware
capable of properly processing all the generated data used for
tracking each unit of product from its manufacturing till its
final location, including transportation and also installation.
Moreover, two Web Services have been proposed in this
paper. The first one is an application to locate the transport
on the route map. The location of all the transports is
available through a Geographic Information System (GIS).
Google Maps is used as it is commonly accepted and
globally referenced due to its usability.
The second Web Service allows customers to check their
orders in real time. So, customers only should query a web
page in order to get this information that is stored in a
database. In addition, they can check other features of their
orders as temperature, humidity or any kind of measure
depending on the type of product.

Figure 2: WSN Node and RFID tags in a pallet
II. LAYERS DESCRIPTION
The tracking system must control the location and
environmental conditions of any product at any time and
must assign it a destination along the distribution chain. The
proposed method is distributed into four layers, as it is
shown on Figure 1.
The first layer is made by the products themselves and/or
the boxes where they are. The second layer corresponds to
the pallets/containers of the product boxes that can be
formed by non-homogeneous loads. The third layer is made
up of containers or other ways of transportation of the
products from initial warehouse to delivery warehouse. And
finally, the fourth layer consists in several Web Services that
we are implementing.
The passive tags attached to each unit of product are part
of the first layer. They can communicate to a closer reader.
No additional devices are required for these tags, as their
only task is sending their own identification codes to the
antenna. Furthermore, reading all the passive tags in a pallet
usually requires going through a reading arch with several
antennas. So, the system collects all the data from the passive
tags through the readers implemented in the first layer.
In the picking processes, each pallet can be made of
different units of product, layers of the same product, or any
other option for mixing the products in order to complete
specific demands. The WSN [5] nodes, as the ones shown in
Figure 2, which are part of the second layer, contain the
whole information of the pallet and their content.
In this way, the contents of the pallets can be verified
along the logistics chain, by double-checking the information
of the product tags and the one on the WSN node of the
pallet. They also have sensors to measure the environmental
conditions of the pallets and memory in order to store this
information.
We need to be careful about battery life in WSN nodes.
To reduce the power consumption the WSN node will be
asleep (low-power mode) most of the time, waking up only
to acquire sensor data or to talk with other nodes in the
network.
In the second layer, the readers manage all the data
concerning the container by means of reading or writing the
whole set of active tags inside. They communicate to each
other using an IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee wireless network [6].
Every element of this network can be located inside a
container-type load unit. These units have a double mission:
on one hand, they control the active tags that are stored
inside them (pallet layer); and on the other hand, they are
able to communicate to other similar units, creating a radio
network that can reach a wider range space, like a
warehouse, a ship, a truck, etc. [7]
A Personal Area Network (PAN) Coordinator is used to
update the information of the nodes within the network,
managing it and the products included on each unit. As this
coordinator is connected to a GPRS module, it is capable of
sending the information in real-time, so that the status of the
load is available in the logistics database. Besides, its exact
position is continuously monitored, so the tracking of the
load on land, at sea, or even by air can be worldwide
performed in this way.
The fourth layer is the Web Service layer, two Web
Services are implemented. The first Web Service that we
implement consists of a service to locate the transport in real
time by means of a GPRS module and Google Maps
JavaScript API [8], which is responsible for displaying the
GPRS module information on the Web application.
Through this Web application, customers can access to
all data, and they can know where their order accurately is at
any time. In addition, they can query information about the
route, the estimated arrival time to the warehouse and the
exact location on the map of the transport route.
On the other hand, by means of the second Web Service
the customers can check their orders anytime. Furthermore,
several RFID readers are used to collect all the data at the
manufacturing warehouse and this information is stored in
the WSN node of the second layer, so goods can be real-time
monitored by the customers.
A unique ‘username’ and a personal ‘password’ is
provided to each customer, so he can only check its own
order and access its own information and this data is stored
in the system database.
Automatically, when customers check their order, the
Web Service reads the information from the WSN node and
compares it to the ordered list of items, which is stored in the
Figure 1: Four-layer model

database. This information about the customer’s order will
also be displayed on the Web application. For example, if the
customer orders 10 products and the RFID readers only read
8, the web application will detect which products have been
received within the shipment and which not.
Besides, one of our goals is that this web application can
be correctly displayed on any device (computer, tablet or
mobile phone) and by any web browser so the W3C
standards [9] are fulfilled, as they are compatible with
several web browsers. Consequently, customers can check
their orders from any place, using any device connected to
Internet.
III. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
Once the theoretical model of the system has been
presented, in this section we describe how the real system
will be implemented and the electronic components that will
be used in our system.
The RFID passive tags are a good solution for tracking
products along the distribution process and they are used in
the first layer of our model. The RFID passive tags are
cheap, they can store up to 128 Kbytes of data and the RFID
readers can read several tags at the same time.
As previously mentioned, WSN nodes are used in the
second layer. These nodes contain information regarding all
the products on a pallet. Initially these data consist on the
identification of the products. Additionally, the situation of
the different layers of products within the pallets created
during the picking can be added to the WSN node.
Other data provided by sensors can be integrated into the
WSN node data, such as temperature, for example. Any
problem in the picking process along the distribution chain
will be recorded in the WSN node memory, so we can check
this information using any device, like a computer, tablet or
even a mobile phone.
Basically, a WSN node consists of: a microcontroller, a
flash memory, a radio transceiver, a power source and
several sensors. By each WSN node, we can monitor several
parameters depending on the type of sensor, as the WSN
node stores this information in its flash memory, also when
joins network, it sends this data to network coordinator.
Several sensors have also been included in the WSN
nodes to get information related to the environmental
conditions of the pallet. In our first prototype, only
temperature and humidity sensors were implemented.
Afterwards, if necessary, more types of sensors will be
added depending on the products and according to new
future needs.
In the third layer, pallets are grouped together and the
WSN nodes can access all the pallet tags and all the data at
the same time through the ZigBee network. Pallet grouping
is usually done inside containers, so a device like this third-
layer-tag can control each container.
The reach of 3-layer devices depends on the transmission
conditions: in open field, it is about 8 meters for the RFID
readers; however, the ZigBee network allows a distance of
over 50 meters between nodes. This distance can be greatly
increased at the cost of reducing battery life.
Due to this limited range, a multi-hop network of routers
should be established in order to communicate with the
network manager, which is the so-called “PAN
Coordinator”.
Sometimes, the ZigBee network cannot be directly
connected to a computer. In these cases, the ZigBee
coordinator is connected to a GPRS module that can
communicate over big distances in real time. By using this
module, it is also possible to indicate the GPS coordinates in
which the load is located, so the traceability data are added
to products information.
The information provided by the GSM/GPRS module,
can be used for locating the transport in a Google Map
application using the Google Maps API. We have
developed a Web application based on regular client-server
architecture, as can be seen on Figure 3. The location
information we will get from the GSM/GPS module will be
used in the fourth layer of our model.
The regular client-server works as follows: the client
requests through a web browser the services from the Web
server. In our local network we have a database server that
provides access, security and storage for all the data of our
system. The information provided by the GSM/GPRS
module and stored in a database, which will be accessed by
the Google Maps application, and thus it will be able to
display all the information in the Web application.

Figure 4: MySQL diagram
Fi
g
ure 3: Re
g
ular client-server architecture
Figure 5: ITAV Web Services Application
As we previously mentioned, we have developed two
Web Services in the fourth layer. Afterwards, more Web
Services can be added.
The first Web Service, as we said, is a real-time location
Web Service. To develop this first Web Service, we need to
capture the GPS data (latitude, altitude, longitude, time,
etc.), the information that we need to locate the transport,
and calculate the time left to arrive to the warehouse
destination. This information will be stored in a specific
database.
We use MySQL [10] as database management system,
because MySQL is easy to configure and it is a widespread
database. We can add more fields if needed. In addition, we
create tables for customers and orders. MySQL tables
diagram is shown in Figure 4.
Once we have the information stored in the database, we
need to read this data in order to displaying it on the map.
Previously, we need to do queries to the database using PHP
[11] for this purpose. Thus, we can locate the transport in
real time on the Google Maps application. Besides, other
type of information can be displayed through the markers or
balloons available on Google Maps.
An example of a route in the ITAV Web Services
Application is shown in Figure 5. We can see the origin
warehouse, the destination warehouse and the transport
route. Besides, click on the markers or on the route, we can
see the sensors information, date, the time left to arrive, etc.
One of the most important issues is that all the route
information in real time can be shown. So, the application
automatically submits the query every few seconds (5 or 10
seconds) to check for any changes in the database and if
necessary, the route will be updated. Besides, we can
configure the GSM/GPRS module to send the updated data
every few seconds, too.
For the second Web Service, we only need the relative
information about the customer’s order and the information
provided by the RFID readers when the order departs from
the manufacturing warehouse. This information is also
stored in the WSN node.
The first and second level information is provided by our
system. The Web Service sends a query to the database and
compares the original order in the warehouse to the real one
that the customer ordered. If the order is correct, the Web
application will display a message on the screen indicating
this condition. If the order is not correct, the Web
application will give us a list of the missing products.
In addition, the query can return more information related
to the products, such as, for example: expiration date, order
in which they are placed or any type of information that the
customer needs about the units of product that he has
requested.
As mentioned, one of our goals is that the web
application can be accessed from any compatible device and
from any web browser. To achieve this objective, we are
using HTML 5 and CSS3 standards and we will try to
develop a compatible version with the most commonly used
web browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet
Explorer), also compatible with smartphones, tablets and
computers (independently of their operative systems).
IV. CONCLUSIONS
Most companies need their products to be monitored
during production, storage and distribution phases.
Sometimes, this monitoring does not only include its
location and real-time working, but also the capability to get
information about the physical situation of the products.

Customers can also use the system to collect some relevant
information about the products they buy, and check if they
have correctly received their orders before opening them.
The application consists of four different layers of
identification and wireless communications, with passive
RFID systems, WSN nodes, ZigBee networks, GPS real-time
location and Web Services, for improving the performance
of extensive tracking for special loads. Besides, an absolute
traceability and visibility, which includes real-time location
of products, can be obtained during distribution or storage
and the ordering processes can be effectively automated.
As we use RFID tags, we also solve the tracing and
tracking problem of any kind of products and if necessary we
will add new types of sensors to WSN nodes to check
humidity, temperature or any other parameter.
The proposed system provides a good reliability and
quality control, as it is even able to detect errors in any point
of the chain. It will be implemented for the location of any
type of products by means of passive tags. Special data
collection using WSN nodes and the capacity to monitor the
whole supplying chain in a company for manufacturing any
kind of products is also provided by the traceability system.
By this system, we will try to decrease the number of errors
that exists in the orders made by customers.
We will also try to solve two problems by implementing
two Web Services that we are proposed: first, the location of
the transport in real-time and second, the checking of
products at any time.
One of our goals is that our Web Application can be
correctly displayed from any device (computer, tablet or
mobile phone) and using any web browser. Thus, we use
HTML 5 and CSS 3. The Web Applications is correctly
working for Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, and
Internet Explorer 9 at this time. Actually, we are working in
a mobile version.
As future work, we will add several Web Services, both
for customers and carriers in order to reduce the delivery
time, and also for transport of any type of goods adding any
other required sensor.
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