Weaver Labs, the UK startup driving growth through connectivity, will work in collaboration with OroraTech as part of a Track & Trust consortium led by Datarella to tackle complex supply chain challenges that humanitarian agencies across the world face.
The innovation, developed by the consortium, will ultimately allow agencies to track aid in locations that lack access to reliable communications infrastructure in a two-year project consisting of development and commercial trials.
Weaver Labs will be the open telecommunications partner in the Track & Trust project, which aims to deliver a scalable, cost-efficient communications platform & network combining satellite, IoT mesh and blockchain components, serving mostly supply chain use cases. The end solution will be a modular product that will provide a plug and play communication network that allows for end-to-end tracking of the supply chain. This will start from the initial supply of goods/aid and extend all the way to the last-mile shipments, even when limited or no telecommunication infrastructure is available.
After the initial success of a Kickstarter project, the consortium has expanded this target market to meet the needs of other sectors where goods require end-to-end tracking, servicing the AgriFood Supply Chain, Dynamic Supply Chain Insurance, Industry 4.0, and Smart Cities V2X sectors.
Maria Lema, co-founder at Weaver Labs comments, “We are thrilled to expand our work with the European Space Agency and play a vital role in the Track and Trust project with our product Cell-Stack. At a time when global supply chains are in crisis, this will bring innovation to where it is needed most, ensuring connectivity and for goods to be tracked in a trusted way.”
To enable traceability of shipments without being dependent on damaged or unreliable telecommunication infrastructure, the project leverages Weaver Labs’ Cell-Stack and its novel messaging system (lite-WireMQ), which is capable of extending many telecommunications systems. The already developed WireMQ asynchronous messaging system will be extended to support IoT and satellite to ensure the mesh network can seamlessly transmit messages across the two technologies, something already demonstrated in a proof of concept as part of the Kickstarter project.
Backed by ESA Business Applications and Space Solutions Program, Track & Trust integrates an efficient IoT protocol for transmitting geolocation, custodian transactions and GNSS metadata to a globally distributed ledger via satellite uplink. Cost reductions of an order of magnitude have been observed in similar projects and are projected here as well.
Yukitaka Nezu, co-founder and CFO at Datarella, adds, “Track and Trust is a unique opportunity to combine Blockchain with SatCom and telecom technology to expand the range of supply chain monitoring capabilities. With Weaver Labs and OroraTech as our consortium partners and with the technical and financial support by ESA, we have a strong setup to make a success story out of Track and Trust.”
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