Toward the Internet of Things for Physical Internet: Perspectives and Challenges

Abstract

The Physical Internet (PI, or $\pi $ ) paradigm has been developed to be a global logistics system that aims to move, handle, store, and transport logistics products in a sustainable and efficient way. To achieve the goal, the PI requires a high-level interconnectivity in the physical, informational, and operational aspects enabled by an interconnected network of intermodal hubs, collaborative protocols, and standardized, modular, and smart containers. In this context, PI is a key player poised to benefit from the Internet-of-Things (IoT) revolution since it potentially provides an end-to-end visibility of the PI objects, operations, and systems through ubiquitous information exchange. This article is to investigate opportunities of application of the IoT technology in the PI vision. In addition, an IoT ecosystem ( $\pi $ -IoT) encompassing key enabling IoT technologies, building blocks, and a service-oriented architecture (SoA) is proposed as a potential component for accelerating the implementation of PI. The major challenges regarding the deployment of IoT into the emerging logistics concept are also discussed intensively for further research.