Smart sensor determines spoilage rate en route
information to receivers about when and where glitches occur as a
food product is being shipped.
The sensor could provide the food industry with a better way to monitor the quality of foods and ingredients they get from suppliers, according to its inventors.
Moishe Groger, a University of Florida electrical engineering senior. said the sensor can tell how long a shipment of food products will be safe before they spoil or pass their expiration dates. Groger and other engineering students designed the sensor, which can also record when temperatures spike or when other glitches occur during shipment.
"We think this sensor will make the perishable supply chain both safer and more efficient," said Bruce Welt, an assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering and a faculty adviser on the project. "Hopefully, that will translate into lower cost, better quality products for consumers."
Welt calls the new device developed by his students a "sensor platform", one that is capable of tracking and interpreting not only temperature but also humidity, the shock of a product being dropped and other variables.
Many shippers today are reluctant to use disposable tags or labels that turn colour or otherwise indicate if a product has passed its prime, he said.
One problem is that the tags do not indicate when spoilage occurred, making it difficult to find out who in the supply chain is responsible when a spoiled product arrives. S
uch tags also do not indicate whether "fresh" goods will soon spoil, which can result in stocks that appear safe but quickly goes bad. Because products have different spoilage rates and temperatures, the disposable tags have to have contain different chemicals or be tailored to individual products. This raises their cost and increases the possibility of errors, Welt stated.
Shippers also rely on temperature monitors that indicate if, and by how much, a product's recommended trucking temperature has been exceeded. The devices may record excessive temperature near only one pallet among the manz stacked together in one shipping container, resulting in the entire shipment having to be discarded.
"The reality is that for small violations of these temperatures, the products are fine but get thrown away anyway," Welt stated. Used with the temperature setting, the half dollar-sized device merges its readings with an algorithm, or set of computer instructions, that electronically mimics the spoilage characteristics of milk, fish, flowers or other products is being shipped. The device can communicate its results in real time via a wireless transmitter.
Receivers can use a laptop to instantly check the status of an incoming product. The algorithm will tell them whether the product is fresh, how long it has until it spoils - and at what point if any temperatures spiked above normal during shipping.
The engineering student team is working with the university's business and law students to patent and market the device as part of the university's Integrated Technology Ventures program.
One hurdle for marketing the sensor is finding the right combination of features and cost. A patent application has been filed for the device. The team recently received a $15,000 grant to continue developing the technology this summer.
