Internet-of-Things paradigm in food supply ecosystems control and management. Goals, strategies and tools

Starting from the definition of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) paradigm, the aim of this paper is to discuss goals and expected strategies for the design and building of a IoT environment aiding the planning, management and control of the Food Supply Chain (FSC) operations. A comprehensive architecture of the entities, the physical-objects, the physical and informative flows, the stages and the processes to be sensed, tracked, controlled and interconnected is given to illustrate the interdependencies between the observed supply chain and the exogenous environment in terms of inputs and mutual impacts. A simulation gaming tool embedding the IoT paradigm for the FSC management is also presented to showcase the potential benefits and opportunities for more direct integration of the physical food ecosystems into virtual computer-aided control systems.