Integration of RFID, wireless sensor networks, and data mining in an e-pedigree food traceability system

Due to the growing customer health awareness, food quality and safety has gained considerable attention. Therefore, consumer demand for complete visibility of food quality and history along the supply chain has significantly increased. This study proposes an e-pedigree food traceability system, utilizing radio frequency identification technology to track and trace product location and wireless sensor network to collect temperature and humidity during storage and transportation. Missing sensor data may occur in real cases, as sensor data are lost or corrupted due to many reasons. The proposed system utilizes data mining techniques to predict missing sensor data. The proposed system was tested for kimchi supply chain in Korea, and showed significant benefit to managers as well as customers by providing real-time location as well as complete temperature and humidity history. The multilayer perceptron model provided the best prediction accuracy for missing sensor data compared to other models. The proposed e-pedigree food traceability system will help managers optimize food distribution while also increasing customer satisfaction, as it can monitor product freshness.