Intelligent networked containers for enhancing global supply chain security and enabling new commercial value

Due to the global nature of todaypsilas economy, cargo containers are the most commonly used form of transportation for the worldpsilas trade. Many government initiatives, regulations and mandates have introduced new requirements for cargo security since the events of 9/11. These necessary security investments for containers can produce new advantages in the global supply chain and the participating industry partners. However, the existing systems which have been developed for ecosystem players are not yet sufficient to address all identified security issues. In this paper we explore a new set of business models, architectures, and emerging technologies that together we believe create a new level of security. First, we propose a system architecture using emerging technologies such as RFID and Wireless Sensor Networks to enhance the security of each container via the creation of ad-hoc dynamic container networks. Second, we describe our prototype implementation to demonstrate the technology capability and constraints. We also discuss lessons learned from the real-life tests. From our experiments, we believe that our approach can achieve the security goals driven by the government as well as create new business value for global supply chain participants.