scholarly journals A UAV and Blockchain-Based System for Industry 4.0 Inventory and Traceability Applications

Proceedings ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiago Fernández-Caramés ◽  
Oscar Blanco-Novoa ◽  
Manuel Suárez-Albela ◽  
Paula Fraga-Lamas

Industry 4.0 has paved the way for a world where smart factories will automate and upgrade many processes through the use of some of the latest emerging technologies. One such technology is Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), which have evolved a great deal in the last several years in terms of technology (e.g., control units, sensors, UAV frames) and have reduced significantly their cost. UAVs can help industry in automatable and tedious tasks, like the ones performed on a regular basis for determining the inventory and for preserving the traceability of certain items. Moreover, in such tasks, it is essential to determine whether the collected information is valid or true, especially when it comes from untrusted third-parties. In such a case, blockchain, another Industry 4.0 technology that has become very popular in other fields like finance, has the potential to provide a higher level of transparency, security, trust and efficiency in the supply chain and enable the use of smart contracts. Thus, in this paper, the design and preliminary results are presented of a UAV-based system aimed at automating the inventory and keeping the traceability of industrial items attached to Radio-Frequency IDentification (RFID) tags. Such a system can use a blockchain to receive the inventory data collected by UAVs, validate them, ensure their trustworthiness and make them available to the interested parties.

Author(s):  
Isak Karabegović ◽  
Edina Karabegović ◽  
Mehmed Mahmic ◽  
Ermin Husak

From the very knowledge of Industry 4.0, its implementation is carried out in all segments of society, but we still do not fully understand the breadth and speed of its implementation. We are currently witnessing major changes in all industries, so new business methods are emerging. There is a transformation of production systems, a new form of consumption, delivery, and transportation, all thanks to the implementation of new technological discoveries that cover robotics and automation, the internet of things (IoT), 3D printers, smart sensors, radio frequency identification (RFID), etc. Robotic technology is one of the most important technologies in Industry 4.0, so that the robot application in the automation of production processes with the support of information technology brings us to smart automation (i.e., smart factories). The changes are so deep that, from the perspective of human history, there has never been a time of greater promise or potential danger.


Author(s):  
Isak Karabegović ◽  
Edina Karabegović ◽  
Mehmed Mahmic ◽  
Ermin Husak

From the very knowledge of Industry 4.0, its implementation is carried out in all segments of society, but we still do not fully understand the breadth and speed of its implementation. We are currently witnessing major changes in all industries, so new business methods are emerging. There is a transformation of production systems, a new form of consumption, delivery, and transportation, all thanks to the implementation of new technological discoveries that cover robotics and automation, the internet of things (IoT), 3D printers, smart sensors, radio frequency identification (RFID), etc. Robotic technology is one of the most important technologies in Industry 4.0, so that the robot application in the automation of production processes with the support of information technology brings us to smart automation (i.e., smart factories). The changes are so deep that, from the perspective of human history, there has never been a time of greater promise or potential danger.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (10) ◽  
pp. 2394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiago M. Fernández-Caramés ◽  
Oscar Blanco-Novoa ◽  
Iván Froiz-Míguez ◽  
Paula Fraga-Lamas

Industry 4.0 has paved the way for a world where smart factories will automate and upgrade many processes through the use of some of the latest emerging technologies. One of such technologies is Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), which have evolved a great deal in the last years in terms of technology (e.g., control units, sensors, UAV frames) and have significantly reduced their cost. UAVs can help industry in automatable and tedious tasks, like the ones performed on a regular basis for determining the inventory and for preserving item traceability. In such tasks, especially when it comes from untrusted third parties, it is essential to determine whether the collected information is valid or true. Likewise, ensuring data trustworthiness is a key issue in order to leverage Big Data analytics to supply chain efficiency and effectiveness. In such a case, blockchain, another Industry 4.0 technology that has become very popular in other fields like finance, has the potential to provide a higher level of transparency, security, trust and efficiency in the supply chain and enable the use of smart contracts. Thus, in this paper, we present the design and evaluation of a UAV-based system aimed at automating inventory tasks and keeping the traceability of industrial items attached to Radio-Frequency IDentification (RFID) tags. To confront current shortcomings, such a system is developed under a versatile, modular and scalable architecture aimed to reinforce cyber security and decentralization while fostering external audits and big data analytics. Therefore, the system uses a blockchain and a distributed ledger to store certain inventory data collected by UAVs, validate them, ensure their trustworthiness and make them available to the interested parties. In order to show the performance of the proposed system, different tests were performed in a real industrial warehouse, concluding that the system is able to obtain the inventory data really fast in comparison to traditional manual tasks, while being also able to estimate the position of the items when hovering over them thanks to their tag’s signal strength. In addition, the performance of the proposed blockchain-based architecture was evaluated in different scenarios.


Author(s):  
Jordan Frith

The phrase the Internet of things was originally coined in a 1999 presentation about attaching radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to individual objects. These tags would make the objects machine-readable, uniquely identifiable, and, most importantly, wirelessly communicative with infrastructure. This chapter evaluates RFID as a piece of mobile communicative infrastructure, and it examines two emerging forms: near-field communication (NFC) and Bluetooth low-energy beacons. The chapter shows how NFC and Bluetooth low-energy beacons may soon move some types of RFID to smartphones, in this way evolving the use of RFID in payment and transportation and enabling new practices of post-purchasing behaviors.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3684
Author(s):  
Bibiana Bukova ◽  
Jiri Tengler ◽  
Eva Brumercikova

The paper focuses on the environmental burden created by Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags in the Slovak Republic (SR). In order to determine the burden there, a model example was created to calculate electronic waste produced by households in the SR by placing RFID tags into municipal waste. The paper presents a legislative regulatory approach towards the environmental impacts from using RFID tags in the SR, as well as an analysis of the environmental burden of using RFID tags throughout the world. The core of the paper is focused on the research conducted in order to calculate the environmental burden of a model household in the SR, where the number of used RFID tags per year was observed; then, the volume of e-waste produced by households of the Slovak Republic per year was determined. In the conclusion, we provide the results of the research presented and discuss including our own proposal for solving the problems connected with the environmental burden of RFID technology.


Author(s):  
Sini-Kaisu Kinnunen ◽  
Antti Ylä-Kujala ◽  
Salla Marttonen-Arola ◽  
Timo Kärri ◽  
David Baglee

The emerging Internet of Things (IoT) technologies could rationalize data processes from acquisition to decision making if future research is focused on the exact needs of industry. This article contributes to this field by examining and categorizing the applications available through IoT technologies in the management of industrial asset groups. Previous literature and a number of industrial professionals and academic experts are used to identify the feasibility of IoT technologies in asset management. This article describes a preliminary study, which highlights the research potential of specific IoT technologies, for further research related to smart factories of the future. Based on the results of literature review and empirical panels IoT technologies have significant potential to be applied widely in the management of different asset groups. For example, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technologies are recognized to be potential in the management of inventories, sensor technologies in the management of machinery, equipment and buildings, and the naming technologies are potential in the management of spare parts.


2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raghav V. Sampangi ◽  
Srinivas Sampalli

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a technology that is very popular due to the simplicity in its technology and high adaptability in a variety of areas. The simplicity in the technology, however, comes with a caveat – RFID tags have severe resource restrictions, which make them vulnerable to a range of security attacks. Such vulnerability often results in the loss of privacy of the tag owner and other attacks on tags. Previous research in RFID security has mainly focused on authenticating entities such as readers / servers, which communicate with the tag. Any security mechanism is only as strong as the encryption keys used. Since RFID communication is wireless, critical messages such as key exchange messages are vulnerable to attacks. Therefore, we present a mutual authentication protocol that relies on independent generation and dynamic updates of encryption keys thereby removing the need for key exchange, which is based on the concept of gene mutation and transfer. We also present an enhanced version of this protocol, which improves the security offered by the first protocol. The novelty of the proposed protocols is in the independent generation, dynamic and continuous updates of encryption keys and the use of the concept of gene mutation / transfer to offer mutual authentication of the communicating entities. The proposed protocols are validated by simulation studies and security analysis.


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