Jun 28, 2017Sensor-analytics company Savi Technology is currently in discussions with businesses in Africa to track cold-chain goods as they are transported by truck, and thereby identify or prevent thefts. African agencies and oil companies have already been using a Savi Technology radio frequency identification-based solution known as OMNIS, from SGS, a Geneva, Switzerland-based inspection, verification, testing and certification services firm, to provide traceability of oil and gas shipments.
The technology enables users to manage the location of their cargo, such as oil and gas, and to confirm that it has not been tampered with as it is moved in tanker trucks through the supply chain, down roads and across borders. The OMNIS system has reduced the loss of cargo for the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and other agencies.
Several companies that offer perishable food or other products plan to use the technology in Africa as well, to detect where their trucks are located, the temperatures at which the goods are transported and whether the containers have ever been tampered with. If tampering does occur, they will know when and where that happens.
SGS has provided its cargo-tracking services in Kenya since 2012, including electronic seals, readers and software from Savi, to automate data collection regarding cargo in transit (see Tanzania Adopts SGS RFID Cargo Tracking). The technology enables oil companies or African governments to track cargo from major loading points in Kenya to destinations in Tanzania and Rwanda. SGS's system helps companies secure their shipments of oil. Many of these truckloads of oil or gas are vulnerable to theft as they move from a loading point to a customer.
When a truck is parked, idling at a traffic light or driving very slowly, thieves can approach the vehicle, open the valve and collect the high-value oil or gas within a container, then escape without being detected by the driver. In other cases, a complicit driver may be aware a theft is taking place and may enable it to happen by stopping his or her vehicle.
Savi's Mobile Tracking System, built into OMNIS, consists of SaviSecure electronic seals with active 2.4 GHz RFID transponders, using a proprietary air-interface protocol built inside. The seals detect whether the enclosure to which they are attached has been breached, and transmit that status to a reader installed on each vehicle—installed either in the cab or on top of the container or trailer.
The Savi electronic seals and readers create what Vicki Warker, Savi's chief marketing officer, calls a small network on each conveyor device. Every vehicle typically has 12 to 16 electronic seal devices attached to enclosures and valves around its tank, and readers which capture and manage the data and then forward it, along with a GPS location, to a server via a GPRS cellular connection.
The software residing on SGS's server can not only track the seals' status (breeched or not), but also the locations of the vehicles to which those seals are attached, based on GPS data. In that way, Warker says, managers can view each vehicle on a map and not only determine its location in real time, but also identify its dwell times, route and estimated arrival time.
In addition, says Bill Poulsen, Savi's senior director of hardware engineering, the technology can enable agency managers or dispatchers to build a set of analytics to better understand traffic behavior and vulnerabilities along specific routes. For instance, if the seals repeatedly detect tampering on trucks at a specific location, at a specific time of day or on a particular day of the week, the managers can reroute vehicles to avoid further theft. They can also warn drivers, or simply be alerted if a driver fails to follow the specified route, or stops where the truck is not authorized or expected to be stopped.
"In regards to analytics," Poulsen says, "they can look at the data in real time and can make decisions accordingly." The challenge for a solution like this one, he explains, is the rugged environment in which it must operate. This is an environment in which cargo subject to theft, and that involves extreme weather conditions, including heat, water and shocks that could damage typical electronics. Because some locations are remote, the technology must rely on satellite communication, or data stored in the readers, until a cellular connection can be regained.
In addition, Savi software collects traffic and weather data for each region through with the vehicles pass, and incorporate that information into projections for dispatchers about estimated times or arrival, as well as any warnings to consider rerouting a vehicle. The software can also analyze the traffic data and advise the dispatchers about the best time to travel on a specific route.
At present, approximately 1,000 vehicles are equipped with the technology on the road in Africa at any given time.
With regard to the cold-chain tracking of other products, the Savi sensors use active RFID but could also employ Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) or Near Field Communication (NFC), depending on the user's needs. The sensors would be attached to pallets or cartons inside a container. An RFID, NFC or BLE receiver can be mounted outside the container or in the truck cab to capture data from the sensors. If a pallet of goods were removed, the receiver mounted on the vehicle would no longer receive transmission from that pallet's transponder, and the software would be updated to indicate that the product on the pallet had been removed from the vehicle. If the software determined that the GPS data related to that removal was not the expected destination, and alert could be issued.
Such solutions are in greater demand in places such as the continent of Africa, Poulsen says. "We're seeing a lot of emerging economies that have a desire to grow," he states, "and are trying to get things under control [such as theft] so that more companies will invest" in doing business in their country.
