Cold Chain Asset Tracker
Overview
This Reference Design was created to record time, location, and temperature data. This information is commonly required for "cold chain" applications like food and medicine, where it important to have proof that proper temperatures have been maintained throughout the transport and storage lifetime of goods.
The cold chain tracker reference design is capable of taking readings as frequently as once per second. Data may be cached when a network connection is unavailable, then uploaded to Golioth the next time connectivity is established.
Blog post
Read more about this project and use case on the Cold Chain Asset Tracker blog post.
Business Use Case
The concept of cold chain tracking gained worldwide recognition in 2020 when the first COVID-19 vaccines were being distributed and need to maintain ultra-cold temperatures between -90°C and -60°C (-130°F and -76°F). However, the need to maintain proper temperatures for food and medicine goes back centuries.
Historically, temperature data has been manually collected using thermometer readings recorded on paper logs. Electronic loggers are now available, with IoT as the newest development. A cold chain tracker can confirm proper storage in real-time. This way alerts can be issued before your product becomes too hot or too cold.
Was a pallet of goods left on on the dock by mistake? A cellular-based cold chain tracker not only knows the temperature is trending in the wrong direction, but can precisely locate the goods so they can be moved to the proper temperature-controlled environment.
Official Repository
View the source code on the official repository:
This reference design is based on the Golioth Reference Design Template.
If you would like a demo of this reference design, please contact [email protected].
Block Diagram
Device Photos
Parts List
- Electronics
- Nordic nRF9160 LTE-M/NB-IoT SiP on a Sparkfun Thing Plus nRF9160 board
- u-blox NEO-M9N GNSS module on a MikroE GNSS 7 Click
- Bosch BME280 environmental unit on a MikroE Weather Click
- Golioth Aludel-Mini circuit board
- LiPoly Battery
- Active GPS antenna
- Mechanical / Enclosure
- CU-1937-MB ABS Enclosure from Bud Industriries (~3.1"x3.1")
- Data
Dashboard
The Grafana dashboard connects to the Golioth REST API to access data from the Cold Chain Tracker. GPS readings—along with temperature, pressure, and humidity data— are queried based on the time window selected in the Dashboard. This makes it simple for customers to retrieve and visualize any historic point during the cold chain, as well as data currently being received.