# Real-Time Anomaly Detection in Cold Chain Transportation Using IoT Technology
## 5 Discussion
A company generally is more willing to adopt IoT technology when the device cost and electricity bill decrease, some studies have conveyed. Therefore, the IoT adoption should consider whether the spent cost is worth the benefit. As previously mentioned, cost is a limiting factor in the adoption of IoT-enabled systems, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. For this reason, in this study, the proposed technology uses cost-effective components to ensure the rollout of monitoring technology is cost-feasible for the business. Additionally, the system operates on preexisting telecommunication infrastructure mitigating potential network layer overheads presented by other systems. Many systems in the literature use fixed power supplies for their gateway unit [68; 71]. Although this suits the use case of a refrigerated van or lorry such as that of the validation case company, there are applications where a power supply for the IoT system is either not present or inaccessible. For example, in the case of temperature-sensitive donor milk delivery [85], the transportation method is a motorcycle where a power supply to the temperature-sensing unit is unavailable. While some portable systems have previously used mobile phones as a gateway device for data capture and upload [61; 64; 69], constant mobile device charging and the pairing of sensors with driver changes increases the likelihood of missed data capture. The system presented in this paper was therefore designed with ease of use and energy efficiency in mind, operating without any intervention from the driver. Results from the battery testing show that by putting the device to sleep while not in use, a minimal device maintenance schedule is also achieved, thus keeping the costs of technology upkeep for the business to a minimum. The sensitivity of the trip detection algorithm is configurable by adjusting the timeout between GPS readings. For Musgrave, NI, the detection window was every 5 min, meaning this was the time between GPS location checks to detect if the van was in motion. However, if the system was deployed in a traffic dense city, the users of the system could increase this parameter accordingly. Extending the window between trip checking could help ensure that the trip status remains valid in the case of a traffic jam. The algorithm, however, does not consider breakdowns in the van. Due to the way alerting is implemented, if the van completely broke down, the logistics staff would not receive an alert about potential temperature abuse as the algorithm relies on vehicle motion being true. Future work will seek to add geofencing functionality to the alerting algorithm. Through the establishment of the base location of the vans, the alerting system could be expanded to offer a breakdown monitoring mode if, for example, the van had been stationary for one hour and it was not located at the known home location of the van. Rather than not uploading data due to a lack of vehicle motion, the breakdown monitoring mode could continue to upload data in 5-min intervals, ensuring the integrity of the products. Another limitation of the work presented in this paper is that different sensor placement locations were not explored during the installation and testing of the IoT RTAD system. The location of sensor placement chosen in this work was upon consultation with refrigeration logistics specialists at Musgrave, NI, who had prior knowledge installing cold chain transportation temperature monitoring equipment. However, previous studies have indicated that the temperature inside the refrigerated equipment is heterogeneous [11]. For example, some suggest that the most accurate ambient temperature insights are provided by monitoring the 'air on' of the refrigeration unit, which is where the ambient air is drawn into the refrigeration unit after circulating the entire chill area. This contrasts the chosen installation location of the sensors in this work, which were placed along the roof, approximately in the middle of each zone.