Implementation of an IOT-based system for cold chain monitoring in the land transportation of perishable agro-food products
Agroindustria
Authors
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Cesar Augusto Romero Molano
Universidad de los Llanos
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9797-0115
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Ayza Yamir Urbina Angarita
Universidad de los Llanos
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6694-0690
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Andrés Felipe Orduz Pérez
Universidad de los Llanos
https://orcid.org/0009-0001-1663-517X
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33936/la_tecnica.v16i1.8380Keywords:
agriculture, efficiency, food safety, innovation, Internet of Things.Abstract
The land transport of perishable agri-food products is a critical link for preserving food quality and safety in Colombia; however, manual and discontinuous monitoring predominates, which hinders traceability and increases the risk of losses during transit. In this study, a low-cost IoT system prototype was designed and implemented for the real-time capture and transmission of temperature, relative humidity, and geographic position during refrigerated land transport. Development was managed using the Scrum agile framework structured into three four-week sprints. The prototype integrated an ESP32 microcontroller, a DHT22 sensor, a Ublox NEO-M8N GPS module, and the ThingSpeak platform as a cloud visualization channel. Five experimental routes were carried out between Villavicencio, Granada, Puerto López, and Restrepo, recording samples every 2 s in local storage and retransmitting data to the cloud every 60s. The results show a mean temperature of 24.20 °C (standard deviation 9.54 °C; range 39.70 °C) and a mean relative humidity of 64.66% (standard deviation 15.25%; range 100%), values consistent with a hot and humid environment and confirming the device's capability to record real operating conditions. The system constitutes an operational technological baseline upon which future research can evaluate its adoption in commercial fleets and its integration with active refrigeration systems.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Cesar Augusto Romero Molano, Ayza Yamir Urbina Angarita, Andrés Felipe Orduz Pérez
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