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This paper presents a prototype of a system for intermodal freight transport with electronics management of goods. The system is based on low-power wireless networks connecting intelligent containers. The proposed intelligent container can be configured with different type of sensors inside. With the objective to preserve the sealing of the container, data collected inside the container are transmitted through a metal communication channel based on ultrasonic techniques. Outside the container, the implemented system is composed by a long range and low power scalable wireless network. Finally, a management subsystem has been designed for tracking, monitoring and alarm reporting.

This paper presents a system with location functionalities for the inventory of traffic signs based on passive RFID technology. The proposed system simplifies the current video-based techniques, whose requirements regarding visibility are difficult to meet in some scenarios, such as dense urban areas. In addition, the system can be easily extended to consider any other street facilities, such as dumpsters or traffic lights. Furthermore, the system can perform the inventory process at night and at a vehicle’s usual speed, thus avoiding interfering with the normal traffic flow of the road. Moreover, the proposed system exploits the benefits of the passive RFID technologies over active RFID, which are typically employed on inventory and vehicular routing applications. Since the performance of passive RFID is not obvious for the required distance ranges on these in-motion scenarios, this paper, as its main contribution, addresses the problem in two different ways, on the one hand theoretically, presenting a radio wave propagation model at theoretical and simulation level for these scenarios; and on the other hand experimentally, comparing passive and active RFID alternatives regarding costs, power consumption, distance ranges, collision problems, and ease of reconfiguration. Finally, the performance of the proposed on-board system is experimentally validated, testing its capabilities for inventory purposes.