In agri-food supply chains (ASC), consumers purchase agri-food goods from farmers. During this process, customers emphasize the need for agri-food safety, while producers hope to enhance their revenues. Due to the dynamism and complexity of the Bangladesh ASC, the traceability and control of agri-food goods encounter formidable obstacles. Due to their reliance on intermediaries, legal financial hurdles, Ethereum-based financial solutions, etc., however, most existing solutions cannot adequately meet the traceability and management needs of Bangladesh ASC. To solve these issues, the authors proposed an integrated Agri-food supply chain (IASC) model. In this study, a systematic review of the literature was conducted using a thematic analysis method. In a portion of the model, the authors depicted a linear physical flow to illustrate the relationship and function of intermediaries and to explain Bangladesh ASC’s dependence on intermediaries. The approach incorporates Blockchain technology and IoT to promote transparency, minimize mistake, prevent product delays, remove unethical and illegal actions, improve supply chain (SC) management, track the whereabouts of the goods, and eventually increase consumer and supplier trust. The article also mentions that crypto currency-based financial transactions between stakeholders in the supply chain are now unlawful in Bangladesh. For blockchain API, a mobile banking and digital payment-based solution has been proposed. Finally, the blockchain-based Hyperledger Sawtooth API has been suggested so that clients can trace the entire history of a product by scanning the QR code on the packaging. Since Bangladesh’s economy is primarily based on agriculture, this research can assist in boosting Bangladesh’s economy. The paper would also contribute to the reduction of corruption and the improvement of firmer/grower and consumer satisfaction. The findings also pave the way for future studies to implement blockchain technology in ASC without relying on Ethereum-based financial flow solutions.
Blockchain-based supply chains provide a new solution to decentralized multi-party product management. However, existing methods, including ID-based and cryptographic-based solutions, cannot achieve both counterfeit resistance and decentralization in supply chain management. We argue that this dilemma comes from the disconnection and inconsistency of the data records and physical product entities. This paper proposes RF-Chain, a novel decentralized supply chain management solution that uniquely combines data record authentication and physical-layer RFID tag authentication to effectively achieve credibility and counterfeit resistance. The main contribution of this work is to integrate physical-layer authentication of cheap commodity RFID tags into a blockchain-based information management system, and RF-Chain is the first to do so. The proposed cross-layer authentication can effectively defend against counterfeit attacks without relying on a central key management service. Real-world experiments utilizing the Ethereum (ETH) platform and more than 100 RFID tags demonstrate that RF-Chain is secure, effective, time-efficient, and cost-efficient.
Kilian Becher, Mirko Schäfer, Axel Schröpfer, Thorsten Strufe
Ensuring sustainable sourcing of crude materials and production of goods is a pressing problem in consideration of the growing world population and rapid climate change. Supply-chain traceability systems based on distributed ledgers can help to enforce sustainability policies like production limits. We propose two mutually independent distributed-ledger-based protocols that enable public verifiability of policy compliance. They are designed for different supply-chain scenarios and use different privacy-enhancing technologies in order to protect confidential supply-chain data: secret sharing and homomorphic encryption. The protocols can be added to existing supply-chain traceability solutions with minor effort. They ensure confidentiality of transaction details and offer public verifiability of producers' compliance, enabling institutions and even end consumers to evaluate sustainability of supply chains. Through extensive theoretical and empirical evaluation, we show that both protocols perform verification for lifelike supply-chain scenarios in perfectly practical time.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
Sep 12, 2022·2022 IEEE Intl Conf on Dependable, Autonomic and Secure Computing, Intl Conf on Pervasive Intelligence and Computing, Intl Conf on Cloud and Big Data Computing, Intl Conf on Cyber Science and Technology Congress (DASC/PiCom/CBDCom/CyberSciTech)
The digitization of a supply chain involves satisfying several functional and non-functional context specific requirements. The work presented herein builds on efforts to elicit trust and profit requirements from actors in the Swedish livestock supply chain, specifically the beef supply chain. Interviewees identified several benefits related to data sharing and traceability but also emphasized that these benefits could only be realized if concerns around data security and data privacy were adequately addressed. We developed a data sharing platform as a response to these requirements. Requirements around verifiability, traceability, secure data sharing of potentially large data objects, fine grained access control, and the ability to link together data objects was realized using distributed ledger technology and a distributed file system. This paper presents this data sharing platform together with an evaluation of its usefulness in the context of beef supply chain traceability.
The healthcare and medicine production goals are to provide quality goods and prevent any counterfeit drugs with the help of the supply chain. The medicine tends to deteriorate its chemical properties when it is exposed to extremely high temperatures or low temperatures beyond its specified optimum level. The optimum temperature should be controlled even when it is subjected to high or low temperatures. When the medicine is exported, the entire flow process from the manufacturer to the customer should be monitored to meet the goals. The principal motive was to solve the issue of the transport of putrescible goods such as medicines, vaccines food products, etc. liable to the changes in the environment which might affect their chemical composition. An RFID tag is employed to track the temperature of the package, during transportation and storage. The components involved are a passive High-Frequency Radio Frequency Identification (HF-RFID) tag kept within the package to read the surrounding temperature, an RFID reader which gets updated with the readings from the tag, a smart device, here, a phone, to access the information graphically via an application and a temperature adjusting installation inside the containment box. Another biggest challenge is to prevent counterfeit drugs. Blockchain technology is proposed to use in the supply chain to prevent data manipulation and data breaching. The blockchain platform along with the Internet of Things (IoT) framework is used to store and secure data at the end of each process in the supply chain and provided to the customers to view.
The vehicle supply chain industry is in a stage of rapid development with the popularization of electric vehicles. However, counterfeits, also known as fake products, present a non-negligible effect on vehicle supply chains. Counterfeit vehicular parts have created significant losses in both monetary value and social terms. For example, tainted and sub-standard tires or batteries used in vehicles even have caused traffic accidents or loss of human life. Due to these dominant reasons, many researchers have focused on building anti-counterfeiting supply chain systems. More recently, several blockchain-based solutions have been presented, whereas most of them lack privacy protection. In this paper, aiming at the issue, we propose a reliable andAnti-counterfeiting andPrivacy-PreservingBlockchain-based vehicle supply chains, called APPB. APPB is characterized by offering dual advantages, by utilizing the immutability of blockchain and keeping the privacy of product selling information and business relationship. Both security analysis and experimental results are conducted, and the results indicate that APPB can achieve privacy protection and anti-counterfeiting with acceptable efficiency.
M. Vijayalakshmi, S. Mercy Shalinie, Ming‐Hour Yang, Shou-Chuan Lai · 5 authors
Supply chain management (SCM) governance is the streamline of the IoT product life cycle from its production to delivery. Integrating blockchain with supply chain management is essential to ensure end-to-end tracking, trustiness between manufacturers and customers, fraud and counterfeit elimination, and customizing administrative costs and paperwork. This paper proposes an RFID ownership transfer protocol with the help of zk-SNARKs (Zero Knowledge-Succinct Noninteractive Arguments of Knowledge) using Ethereum blockchain. When the owner performs RFID transfer, the transferred information will be recorded on the blockchain using smart contracts. When using a smart contract to transfer ownership on the Ethereum blockchain, because the content on the blockchain will not be tampered with, all accounts in the Ethereum can view the transfer results and verify them. The privacy of the supply chain is attained by generating the proof of product code via zk-SNARKs algorithm. This algorithm also enhances the scalability of the supply chain system by creating a trusted setup in off-chain mode.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
Cristian Valencia-Payan, José Fernando Grass Ramírez, Gustavo Ramírez-González, Juan Carlos Corrales
Recently there has been an increase in the use of Blockchain technology for multiple purposes; one of them has been food traceability. This technology has increased quality control, safety, and reliability. So, the producers are looking for better ways to trace the products at any supply chain stage to ensure their quality. A smart contract is a transaction protocol that execute automatically when a predefined set of conditions are met. In this paper, we propose a smart contract to monitor the status of the coffee beans in the transport and storage stages with data validation. Using the Hyperledger Fabric Blockchain tool, we deploy a test network of two actors, also known as organizations. The organizations come together to form a channel in the network. Each has a valid identity that helps them verify their signatures over any transaction. We selected JavaScript to write our proposed smart contract for experimental and evaluation purposes. To evaluate the smart Contract, we use Hyperledger Caliper, obtaining an average throughput of 10.4tps and average latency of 0.7s, being fast enough to be used in a real environment, considering the current control conditions of the coffee beans.
Radio frequency identification technology (RFID) is widely used due to its advantages of contactless identification. How to ensure the location privacy of tags and their users has become an urgent problem in the development of RFID technology. In order to resist active attacks such as tampering and counterfeiting caused by rewriting encryption and canceling encryption by malicious attackers. According to the existing location privacy protection schemes, this paper uses non-interactive zero-knowledge proof (NIZK) and universal re-encryption, then designs a publicly verifiable location privacy re-encryption scheme. In this scheme, all calculations are performed by the anonymizer. The anonymizer not only performs the ciphertext re-randomization operation, but also needs to provide a NIZK for this. The next anonymizer must verify the proof before re-randomization. The tag only needs to provide a certain reading and writing function to ensure that the ciphertext re-randomized each time will not be tampered with. We can see that this scheme can well protect the tag and user's location privacy through analysis.
With regard to current RFID tags, as their owners change during the circulation process, the ownership of the tags is transferred, and the data containing the tag information is also transferred. Data is stored in the blockchain, which is a distributed ledger system maintained by a decentralized collective. A complete ownership transfer requires a download, decryption, and encrypted upload of the label content information from the blockchain server. This mode will bring tedious and repetitive data processing problems when carrying out multiple consecutive ownership transfers. Seriously affect the efficiency of the entire process, and will bring safety issues. For this reason, this paper proposes a lightweight RFID ownership transfer protocol that uses a proxy re-encryption algorithm to process tag content information. That is, the blockchain server uses proxy re-encryption to perform ciphertext conversion of the encrypted information, so that the ciphertext encrypted by the user Alice's public key is converted into the ciphertext encrypted with the user Bob's public key, and the user Bob can directly decrypt it with his private key. This paper uses a lightweight hash function calculation to ensure the security of ownership transfer. The experimental security analysis of the protocol show that the proposed protocol meets the security requirements and improves the efficiency of ownership transfer.
Abstract As new authentic products are introduced into the market, counterfeiting has always been on the rise. In 2015, the global economic loss caused by counterfeiting is more than 1.7 trillion US dollars and has been increasing annually. Therefore, an inexpensive but efficient anti‐counterfeiting platform must be developed to end counterfeiting. Here, a wireless platform for the anti‐counterfeiting with an item‐tracking is developed by integrating printed four key‐device units, a 13.56 MHz rectenna (wireless power transmission), supercapacitors (power storage), 1‐bit code generator chip (logic code), and an electrophoretic based quick response code (memory). Our near‐field communication quick response code label platform is inexpensive and effective by utilizing blockchains and high throughput roll‐to‐roll printed devices. When practically applied, the near field communication quick response code label wirelessly operates through a near field communication carrier signal from a smartphone to demonstrate anti‐cloning and authentic item‐tracking through its interconnection with the blockchain.
Energy Harvesting in Wireless Networks
RFID technology advancements
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
Donghang Lu, Pedro Moreno-Sánchez, Pramita Mitra, Ken Feldman · 7 authors
<div>The lack of traceability in today’s supply-chain system for auto components makes counterfeiting a significant problem leading to millions of dollars of lost revenue every year and putting the lives of customers at risk. Traditional solutions are usually built upon hardware such as radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags and barcodes, and these solutions cannot stop attacks from supply-chain (insider) parties themselves as they can simply duplicate products in their local database.</div> <div>This industry-academia collaborative work studies the benefits and challenges associated with the use of distributed ledger (or blockchain) technology toward preventing counterfeiting in the presence of malicious supply-chain parties. We illustrate that the provision of a distributed and append-only ledger jointly governed by supply-chain parties themselves makes permissioned blockchains such as Hyperledger Fabric a promising approach toward mitigating counterfeiting. Meanwhile, we demonstrate that the privacy of supply-chain parties can be preserved as competing supply-chain parties strive to protect their businesses from the prying eyes of competitors and counterparties. Besides, we show that the recall process can be achieved efficiently with the help of the blockchain. The proposed solution, Fordchain, overcomes the challenges to achieve the best of both worlds: a solution to the counterfeiting problem using distributed ledger technology while providing accountability and the privacy notions of interest for supply-chain parties. Although our efforts to build a blockchain-based counterfeiting prevention system aim at automotive supply chains, the lessons learned are highly applicable to other supply chains. We end-to-end implement our Fordchain solution in the Hyperledger Fabric framework, analyze it over AWS EC2 clusters, and illustrate that the performance of our solution is good enough to be applied in practice.</div>
Lanci opskrbe hranom vrlo su složeni, postoje određeni zakoni, standardi kao i centralizirani načini praćenja sljedivosti hrane no to nije dovoljno da bi se izbjegla izbijanja bolesti i pronašli njihovi uzroci. Jedno od mogućih rješenja ovog problema je primjena tehnologije distribuirane glavne knjige koja nam pruža decentraliziranu i sigurnu mrežu, kao i transparentan i trajan način zapisa podataka u glavnu knjigu. Također potrebno je potaknuti sve dionike lanca na digitalizaciju strojeva i primjenu senzora kojima bi prikupljali podatke o uzgoju i skladištenju hrane, a korisnik mora biti u mogućnosti ovakvo rješenje koristiti na jednostavan i brz način. Ovaj rad koristi distribuiranu glavnu knjigu IOTA koja je namijenjena uređajima interneta stvari, a sve podatke zapisuje u strukturu usmjerenog acikličkog grafa zvanog Tangle. Još jedna od značajki IOTA-e je MAM protokol koji dionicima lanca omogućuje zapis podataka u javne, ali i ograničene kanale kojima se ne može pristupiti bez autorizacijskog ključa. Koristeći navedene značajke IOTA-e, u sklopu rada implementirano je rješenje praćenja sljedivosti u lancu koji se sastoji od farmera, proizvođača i prodavača. Svaki od dionika svojim poslužiteljem u Tangle zapisuje podatke vezane uz proizvod, korijeni transakcija zapisuju se u QR kod na proizvodu, a korisnik kod može skenirati razvijenom aplikacijom CQRN i na pregled dobiti sve informacije koje su dionici zapisali u Tangle.
David Breitgand, Alexios Lekidis, Rasoul Behravesh, Avi Weit · 8 authors
Network slicing is an essential 5G innovation whereby the network is partitioned into logical segments, so that Communication Service Providers (CSPs) can offer differentiated services for verticals and use cases. In many 5G use cases, network requirements vary over time and CSPs must dynamically adapt network slices to satisfy the contractual network slice QoS, cooperating and using each others’ resources, e.g. when resources of a single CSP are not sufficient or suitable to maintain all it’s current SLAs. While this need for dynamic cross-CSP cooperation is widely recognized, realization of this need is not yet possible due to gaps both in business processes and in technical capabilities.In this paper, we present a 5GZORRO approach to dynamic cross-CSP slice scaling. Our approach both enables CSPs to collaborate, providing security and trust with smart multi-party contracts, and facilitates thus achieved collaboration to enable resource sharing across multiple administrative domains, either during slice establishment or when already existing slice needs to expand or shrink. Our approach allows automating both business and technical processes involved in dynamic lifecycle management of cross-CSP network slices, following ETSI’s Zero-Touch Network and Service Management (ZSM) closed-loop architecture, and relying on resource-sharing Marketplace, Distributed Ledger (DL), and Operational Data Lake. We show how this approach is realized in truly Cloud Naive way, with Kubernetes as both business and technical cross-domain orchestrator. We then showcase applicability of the proposed solution for dynamic scaling of Content Delivery Network (CDN) service.
Tobacco products are an addictive commodity. According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) latest statistics data, tobacco kills more than eight million people each year. In 2003, the WHO proposed the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) to provide an effective framework for the control of tobacco products to governments around the world. In the field of tobacco products, the hardest problem is how to prevent counterfeit tobacco products and smuggling. To solve the problems, we proposed a blockchain-based traceable and verifiable logistics system for tobacco products with global positioning system (GPS) and radio-frequency identification (RFID) Technologies. In this research, we provide an overview of system architecture, and also define the protocol and the smart contract in every phase that stores data into the blockchain center. We realized a decentralized database and authentication system that uses blockchain and smart contract technology; every protocol in every phase was designed to achieve the integrity of data and non-repudiation of message. Every tobacco product’s shipping record will be completed by scanning the RFID tag and retrieving the GPS with a mobile reader, where the record will be updated and validated in the blockchain center. In the end, the security and costs of the system were analyzed, and a comparison was made with the EU’s (European Commission) method. Our system is more flexible for transportation, more secure in the communication protocol, and more difficult to tamper and forge data. In general, the proposed scheme solved the problem of tobacco products counterfeiting and tracking issues.
The Physical Internet paradigm opens a new way to describe and design how logistics organizations can work, with many managerial, engineering, and economical implications on supply chain performance, including sustainability and resilience. The Physical Internet, as its name suggests, builds on a metaphor from the network of computers networks: the (Digital) Internet. Described in several papers and book chapters (Montreuil 2011; Sarraj et al. 2012; Montreuil et al., 2013; Ballot et al. 2014), its core concept is the universal interconnection of logistics services and networks. To provide an introduction to this special topic forum, we first discuss the origin of the term Physical Internet. Second, we assess the current status of research and provide a literature review. Third, we showcase key PI issues and research challenges and we finish with a brief introduction of the papers that were selected for this special forum. The Physical Internet is inspired by the principles of the Digital Internet, so it is not a mere copy-and-paste of its constituents such as the transmission control and Internet protocols (TCP/IP). This is crucial as there are major differences between data packets on the digital side and parcels and freight on the physical side, and also major differences at the organization levels. The Physical Internet is also by definition different from the Internet of Things (IoT) defined by the connection of physical objects to the Digital Internet. This said, the IoT can be an enabler of the Physical Internet by increasing visibility and control of objects beyond a company’s information systems. The Physical Internet is about interconnecting the world’s logistic networks and is thus defining a new opportunity for supply chain design and operations, enabling seamless open asset sharing and flow consolidation, fulfilling society’s demand for physical objects with an order-of-magnitude better efficiency and sustainability, thanks to improved economies of scale and scope. Physical Internet success stems from interconnecting logistics actors on multiple layers, such as physical, digital, operational, transactional, and legal. Ultimately, the Physical Internet will enable universal interconnectivity with any organization, anytime and anywhere. This is a disruption of the mostly service or customer dedicated logistic networks. At supply chain design and management levels, the Physical Internet opens the way to completely new interconnected operations and business models with a clear goal to improve sustainability in a broad sense. For example, PI implies a redesign of freight transportation, with gradual shift to interconnected transportation. At the basic level, the PI interface will simplify switching between transport carriers (e.g., trailers, railcars) and transport containers. The containers will be moving in a quasi-continuous flow, without driving time limitations or vehicle recharging constraints, and with a continuous tracking of performance and liability to ensure the highest level of service and trust. The impact of the use of PI interfaces for transport containerization on handling and efficiency is well described (Levison, 2016). At a secondary level, PI redesign will improve shipment confidentiality and modular handling containers will improve intercarrier exchanges performed at multiparty sorting and crossdocking hubs, enabling a higher critical mass of flows between hubs, and therefore offer higher transport frequency and higher levels of services (Montreuil et al., 2016). Based on actual data from the consumer goods supply chain, an early simulation-based assessment study of the Physical Internet potential revealed that interconnected transportation enabled decrease of 15% in traveled km, an increase of 33% fill rate, and a decrease of 60% CO2 emissions (Sarraj et. al 2014). A similar transformational shift toward interconnected distribution is achievable by applying Physical Internet concepts to the dynamic smart deployment of goods in an open network of warehouses, distribution centers, and fulfillment centers. Early optimization and simulation-based assessment studies of interconnected distribution revealed significant improvement in efficiency (30% order of magnitude), responsiveness, resilience, and security, through a dynamic network approach securing supplies without duplication of safety stocks and fast fulfillment in line with market expectations (Sohrabi et al. 2016; Yang et al. 2017). The impact of COVID-19 has put a spotlight on such works for all sectors and not limited at the company level like previous analyses (Simchi-Levi et al., 2014). As a new paradigm, the Physical Internet induces changes in logistics organizations and in supply chain applications, but it is also evolving based on trends and supported by new and future research. The Digital Internet was also quite an original paradigm in organizations. Based on a set of protocols, not ISO standards, it was mainly developed by researchers with an associative, thus private governance and gradually adopted by the industry at large, toward its current extensive use across all societal and economic realms. The Digital Internet burst was a disruption compared with the classical interconnection rules already in place between telecom companies in charge of communication in a highly regulated environment. In general companies, and especially the services providers and network infrastructure operators, found in digital Internet concepts, principles, and protocols, notably TCP/IP, the technical solutions needed to settle new businesses with models such as transit contracts and peering bilateral agreements. In short, the Digital Internet brought three main components: a set of protocols independent of technologies, a business framework, and a mostly state-independent governance body. Logistics organizations have different origins. Among these, one is very similar to telecom: the postal services already interconnected under the Universal Postal Union regulations since the end of the nineteen century (https://www.upu.int/en/Home/). This organization still operates but is highly dependent on state-owned operators, sometimes hostage to political stakes, and it has offered few innovations in the last few decades. The other activities remain in the hands of logistics service providers with limited regulations and a continuous flow of innovations in services. To illustrate what PI can provide to the logistic sector, it is useful to consider the same three main interconnection components as previously discussed. From a technical point of view, standardization of tools and processes are not well adopted in the logistics sector. Notable exceptions are the maritime containers on the physical level and incoterms on the transactional level. There is a set of standardized dimensions for cardboard boxes [ISO 3394:2012] yet major players use their own designs. Even for pallets, there exist many standardized sizes, not to mention materials and strengths. The same goes for electronic data exchange (EDI), as messages are standardized but all companies use them in different ways, with minimal intercompany compatibility. The lack of universally adopted tools and processes is a strong barrier against shared solutions and a more efficient logistics process. From a business point of view, a classical approach to develop a logistics business is the expansion of a company by acquiring or integrating competitors in other territories or with specific complementary services. This approach is still at play between logisticians (Carbone and Stone, 2005) and also in the e-commerce sector with companies seeking the integration of logistics companies to maximize their value chain. With the integration, the working methods, the tools, and the codes are defined for the integrating company’s organization which can thus potentially achieve a high degree of consistency, but which remains limited to each such company. Despite the advantages of integration provided by economies of scale and scope, it is limited by investment capacity and antitrust regulations. The second classical approach to develop a logistics business is through the market. Contracting or subcontracting is important in logistics markets, notably for storage, trucking, and last-mile delivery. In most cases, each contract specifies its own set of terms, conditions, tools, and processes. This approach is also very dynamic with the proliferation of marketplaces to ease subcontracting at a larger scale. Between market and integration, a third approach has grown in the last few years, based on collaborative solutions such as alliances, traffic exchange agreements, and pooling (Cruijssen et al. 2007). This approach is the most similar to the Physical Internet paradigm. It seeks to improve the performance beyond the classical boundaries of firms by sharing resources and operations, but with less uncertainties associated with pure market transactions. However, such collaborative organizations, despite some merits, are limited to a few participants and are quite hard to generalize so far. To avoid any misunderstanding, the interconnected approach should not be positioned between the classical organizational approaches to improve logistics performance. It is not a new collaborative organization that would fall between market and integration in a transaction cost framework (Coase 1937). It is a set of protocols, interfaces, and tools, enabling interconnectivity on massive scale and scope that could drastically change business relations in the logistic sector. From a governance point of view, the goal is making the universal interconnection between logistics networks not only technically feasible and economically profitable, but also acceptable by society and industry. One way to make this all acceptable is to demonstrate that the Physical Internet can work, first at a limited scale with experimentations and businesses, so as to build trust and consensus about its design. If collaboration is needed, it is at the design stage of Physical Internet protocols, interfaces, and tools, when researchers and industry innovators can propose solutions and a roadmap, like the EU SENSE project led by ALICE European Technology Platform [https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/769967]. Concept proofing, pilot testing, experimentations, and improvements are leading the way toward wide scale adoption. At that point, governance of PI solutions will need to take place to define validated Physical Internet solutions and guide their implementation, adoption and evolution. Physical Internet research is enhancing and extending the scientific foundations; assessing the performance improvement potentiality; bridging the capability gaps, notably through new models, protocols, and designs; and validating feasibility and implementation hurdles, particularly through monitoring pilot projects and analyzing case studies (Pan et al. 2017). Research and innovation in packaging, handling, and transport containerization (Landschützer et al. 2015; Montreuil et al. 2016; Sallez et al. 2016) are gradually leading the way toward designed-for-logistics, smart, connected, and ecofriendly Physical Internet containers (e.g., aeler.com, livingpackets.com, poneragroup.com), notably with high-impact industry and trade agreements facilitating their development and deployment (e.g., Leblanc, 2020). Business model innovations in line with Physical Internet concepts are making headway in the market and prospering, as expected from Montreuil et al. (2013b). Examples abound, such as on-demand warehousing (e.g., flexe.com), open-access fulfillment network services (darkstore.com, sell.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon), open access delivery platforms (e.g., roadie.com), as well as freight and logistics marketplaces and apps (coyote.com, freightera.com, colivri, mixmove.io, uber.com/freight). Several large logistic players are currently investigating whether and how to evolve stepwise toward the Physical Internet for themselves. For example, logistics and delivery service providers such as Americold, SF Express, and UPS have engaged in major PI research projects with Georgia Tech’s Physical Internet Center. With multinational corporations, the first steps are usually started by aiming toward a Physical Intranet interconnecting their multiple internal networks and activities, and then gradually consider more open multiparty approaches. As an example, UPS has invested in Ware2Go, a technology company and platform to match merchant needs with flexible fulfillment, recruiting and certifying warehouses in strategic locations, enabling merchants to position products closer to their customers, leveraging the scope and scale of UPS’s network to provide an integrated delivery solution to improve management of the order-to-delivery experience (UPS, 2018). The growing piecemeal PI exploration and adoption by industry, from startups to established corporations, highlights why research and innovation projects with collaboration between industry and academia are so important in the current context. There have been several articles that provided a good systematic literature review of the latest published research in the Physical Internet such as Pan, Ballot, Huang, and Montreuil (2017), Sternberg and Norrman (2017), Matusiewicz et al. (2020) and Treiblmaier, Mirkovski, Lowry, and Zacharia (2020). The following review of recently published PI research provides an update and brief overview of the articles published in 2019 and 2020 that have not been previously reviewed. They also help to position the PI paradigm, identity enablers, and propose implementations with tools or in specific areas. The positioning of the Physical Internet as a new paradigm is still an active scientific debate with several new contributions since last year. Through their literature review, Fergani et al. 2019 propose a general taxonomy for PI, distinguishing between research areas that are not as well covered and providing avenues for further research. Two other papers chose to position PI in comparison with actual approaches. Cornejo et al. (2020) provide an overview of both PI and Lean to show the relationship between both paradigms, and they highlight the potential benefit of value stream mapping for contrasting current and Physical Internet solutions in terms of PI goals. Ambra et al. (2019) exposed the relationships between the concepts of synchromodal transport systems and the Physical Internet, as both were developed to improve socioeconomic conditions and environmental sustainability. Their research identifies potential synergies, future research directions, and critical questions to be considered. Another set of papers focuses on enablers such as the one proposed by Meyer et al. (2019). It develops a Blockchain-based 4-layered framework to overcome some of the barriers within PI associated with the exchange of value and physical assets in decentralized logistics networks. Betti et al. (2019a, 2019b) investigate the exploitation of Blockchain distributed ledgers and smart contracts in interconnected logistics and validate the potential by coupling an agent-oriented discrete-events simulation with a Blockchain platform. In the same vein, Tran-Dang et al. (2020) investigate the application of Internet of Things technologies, building blocks, and a service-oriented architecture to accelerate the implementation of PI. Propose an open network-model approach for providing infrastructural data sovereignty that will enable the sharing of sensitive operational data as required for realizing PI. From another perspective, Lafkihi et al. (2019) use gamification methodology to compare a centralized approach, based on a central authority that optimizes transport plans for all carriers, versus a decentralized approach where carriers optimize their own transport plans, as found in simple PI implementations. Results indicate centralization outperforms in terms of global efficiency and effectiveness; while decentralization is better for individual incentives. The last proposed set of papers focuses on solutions for existing problems or new problems raised by new types of operations. Osmólski et al. (2019) present dedicated PI solutions to logistic processes such as modular transport units and real-time planning and information exchange, as well as properly communication et al. (2019) the use of interconnected and systems for an existing freight in a PI leading to a dynamic real-time for et al. (2019) a optimization model that can be for dynamic and within the industry. et al. (2019) focuses on operations in a They the as a model with and validated through an et al. (2019) a simulation that multiple in a flexible dynamic can a shift toward transport that are useful in PI. et al. (2019) a key of the Physical Internet is the need for interconnected that a and they that a model better for high vehicle and a model better for vehicle From a perspective, et al. (2020) the in leveraging PI as a strategic development and by a strategic for to ensure its place as the most logistics by There were papers to the original special topic for was by a of three at each with some papers through leading to papers as The of this special topic as on the Physical Internet was it provided an opportunity for researchers to the latest technologies, applications, and to the Physical Internet. Second, it to critical issues and challenges for future research and development in the broad of Physical Internet and of interconnection and of logistics networks and supply Third, it to further logistics research the new Physical Internet paradigm. the three papers selected for this special goals. The first from and the Digital Internet to the Physical A framework with a network and the between Digital Internet and the Physical Internet. This a framework for PI based on the Digital Internet with the of both the and It the of and the of PI in comparison with In the propose a network model to the implementation of the PI. the develop an to the model and demonstrate how it can be to the PI in a case The second from and is in a Physical Internet and et al. It the and success associated with in a PI network both and They use a research approach, and three logistics service providers in a to demonstrate that central and of resources is a and in PI, especially with continuous PI The third from Sternberg and the Physical Internet Logistics service and design and a key of the PI. The of PI containers is the of this as it at the design and that will the flows in a network context. They a model that flow to investigate compatibility. The that in terms of and flows whether PI or compared with the existing logistics The also show the of and on what the of technology which are all important for future research on and design. The from and A of within a in and the concept of an open network that can access to place for that will in existing to a simulation the were to demonstrate the of closer to leading to in private and existing service providers with only in to existing freight The show more more efficient of leading to a more to the company’s the Physical Internet a paradigm for analyzing logistics operations that particularly to the needs of the environmental and and resilience. It therefore that companies not to the associated Even the first of implementation we remain from universal including when technical solutions are with associated economic for modular handling containers Several which are not can be put which the many avenues of research that are to closer to a implementation of the Physical Internet. There is a need for more operational of PI, both on a larger scale and more open to in the research some companies use concepts to the Physical Internet, in Physical Intranet the limited communication on this the of still The open-access sharing of resources and flow consolidation, in the broad between logistic companies should therefore to be the of research to better the associated with their performance and the conditions for their The of operations is such that to and will also be to the for each of the operators, as by Lafkihi et al. (2020). The distribution of a logistic service several including not at the and beyond is a strong point but the of trust and for monitoring performance. the needs for shared and a or a to a shipment to a third with a to that of operations to a The of the maritime 2016) the of a logistics but all of it on a global scale. the and and it is to in between the players in order to achieve a shared was (e.g., has been and to a new to containers without any company. the design of the remains an and in a limited way the issues at to a large and sector in a to logistics efficiency with the of its This is the by the European which a with industry to this In this it also be useful to from other sectors such as and its Technology for For years, this sector has been and more which is not a physical but a business in the of logistics a of in efficiency set by could make it to technical As the paradigm of the Physical Internet many and but research questions and we are that this special will significant to be on the Physical Internet through the research it will are of all the their the the to the articles found in this special and especially the of Business Logistics and their and providing with the opportunity to develop this