IoT based milk business optimized monitoring in Rwanda "A cow's milk is wealth and health"

Abstract

Like in many countries, the government of Rwanda opted a policy to transform the increase of milk production into a business opportunity through its chained production, transportation, transformation and trading, by establishing Milk Collection Centers (MCC), Dairy industries as well as Milk Trading Zones and hence benefited many traders while contributing to the economic development of the country. However, there is no centralized real-time monitoring of both quality and quantity data, which result in loss at one side or another. As the consumption increases, per agent, the demand increases to the side of industry which results in waiting (queue) of the supply to milk traders. This delaying, not only slows down the businesses, but also, may lead to shortages of milk on the side of the consumers while there is excess of milk on the side of the farmers. Then, some farmers look for alternative solutions, to avoid the wastage, including selling milk to traders directly without dairy involvement, which becomes difficult to ensure the quality of consumed milk especially in case of high local demand. The integration of internet of things (IoT) devices, such as sensors and microcontrollers, in the existing infrastructures, like tanks, will centralize the real-time monitoring and information sharing of both quantity and quality of milk between traders and suppliers. This will reduce the economic loss and facilitated the food and standard institution to remotely verify the purity of milk being sold to consumers by traders. The proposed solution, comprising the perception devices, wireless communication technologies and data visualization combined, will help the milk supplier to know when and where to carry milk in real-time, which avoids milk scarcity to traders. Once the milk is diluted or adulterated, the IoT de-vice will notify the institution in charge of quality standards through the browser interface. For sampling purpose, only one IoT device is prototyped. At the end, when the milk is consumed qualitatively and quantitatively, the profitability on both sides of businesses and farmers will increase, while ensuring the health of consumers, particularly to 38% [1] chronic malnutrition to children in Rwanda.

v KEY WORDS Internet of Things (IoT), Milk level, Milk quality, Milk traders, Ultrasonic Sensor, PH Sensor, Arduino Microcontroller, GSM/GPRS Module,