APPLICATION OF PASSIVE TEMPERATURE RFID SENSORS IN THE FOOD COLD CHAIN LOGISTICS IN MONTENEGRO
Keywords:
Cold chain logistics, passive tags, RFID technology, temperature monitoring, traceabilityAbstract
In recent years, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology has emerged as a highly popular and transformative advancement across global logistics and supply chain management, offering unprecedented capabilities for wireless asset tracking without requiring a direct line-of-sight. The primary purpose of this study is to develop, evaluate, and propose a comprehensive, low-cost technological architecture for monitoring and managing the temperature-controlled food supply chain within the specific industrial context of the Montenegrin food market. The methodology employed in this research utilizes passive Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) RFID temperature sensors operating at standard frequencies of 868 and 915 MHz, which are encapsulated in specialized protective layers to withstand harsh environments. This hardware is systematically integrated with mobile and fixed readers, central background database systems, and global positioning systems (GPS) across four sequential logistical phases, namely: processing and labeling, cooling and distributing, warehouse storing, and final retailing. The results of this study demonstrate that the proposed system achieves continuous, real-time tracking of both spatial location and ambient environmental conditions of perishable cargo, effectively eliminating manual data entry operations, drastically reducing processing errors, and providing high data integrity via integrated error correction codes during wireless transmission. Consequently, the study concludes that the implementation of passive RFID architecture offers immense economic and operational advantages over expensive active sensor alternatives, successfully bridging the existing traceability gap in Montenegro where currently no automated cold chain system is active and over seventy percent of local facilities lack adequate tracking records. Based on these findings, it is highly recommended that Montenegrin regulatory bodies and food producers adopt automated wireless sensing infrastructures to comply with modern food safety standards and international regulations. Additional data analyzed within this report confirms that the specified passive sensors operate reliably under extreme thermal conditions ranging from negative forty to sixty degrees Celsius with a high accuracy of up to 0.6 degrees, offering a scalable and commercially viable model to protect public health, minimize logistical product shrinkage, and enhance overall consumer confidence from farm to table.
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