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• Moreno, A
• Angulo, I
• Perallos, A
• Landaluce, H
• Zuazola, I
• Azpilicueta, L
• Astrain, J
• Falcone, F
• Villadangos, J
• [+] on Google Scholar
• Moreno, A
• Angulo, I
• Perallos, A
• Landaluce, H
• Zuazola, I
• Azpilicueta, L
• Astrain, J
• Falcone, F
• Villadangos, J
• [+] on PubMed
• Moreno, A
• Angulo, I
• Perallos, A
• Landaluce, H
• Zuazola, I
• Azpilicueta, L
• Astrain, J
• Falcone, F
• Villadangos, J

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Sensors 2012, 12(5), 6587-6609; doi:10.3390/s120506587

Article

IVAN: Intelligent Van for the Distribution of Pharmaceutical Drugs

Asier Moreno ¹ , Ignacio Angulo ¹ , Asier Perallos ^1,* , Hugo Landaluce ¹ , Ignacio Julio García Zuazola ¹ , Leire Azpilicueta ² , José Javier Astrain ³ , Francisco Falcone ²  and Jesús Villadangos ³

¹ Deusto Institute of Technology (DeustoTech), University of Deusto, Bilbao 48007, Spain ² Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department, Universidad Pública de Navarra, Pamplona 31006, Spain ³ Mathematics and Computer Engineering Department, Universidad Pública de Navarra, Pamplona 31006, Spain

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received: 19 March 2012; in revised form: 12 May 2012 / Accepted: 14 May 2012 / Published: 18 May 2012

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Select papers from UCAmI 2011 - the 5th International Symposium on Ubiquitous Computing and Ambient Intelligence (UCAmI'11))

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Abstract: This paper describes a telematic system based on an intelligent van which is capable of tracing pharmaceutical drugs over delivery routes from a warehouse to pharmacies, without altering carriers’ daily conventional tasks. The intelligent van understands its environment, taking into account its location, the assets and the predefined delivery route; with the capability of reporting incidences to carriers in case of failure according to the established distribution plan. It is a non-intrusive solution which represents a successful experience of using smart environments and an optimized Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) embedded system in a viable way to resolve a real industrial need in the pharmaceutical industry. The combination of deterministic modeling of the indoor vehicle, the implementation of an ad-hoc radiating element and an agile software platform within an overall system architecture leads to a competitive, flexible and scalable solution.

Keywords: intelligent van; pharmaceutical drugs traceability; incidences reporting; non-intrusive; RFID; wireless technologies, deterministic 3D ray launching

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