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WKU Awarded Project To Monitor Milk Transport System
Bowling Green, Ky. - Western Kentucky University's Applied Physics Institute and the University of Kentucky have been awarded a three-year, $1.5 million research and development project by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to secure milk transport from farm to processor.
The award was announced recently in Somerset by The National Institute for Hometown Security. U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers made the announcement and was joined by U.S. Department of Homeland Security Under Secretary Charles McQueary, who leads the department's Science and Technology Directorate. Fred Payne of UK is the principal investigator for the project. Phillip Womble, co-principal investigator of the project and director of API, will lead WKU's research team. Industrial collaborators include companies from Kentucky and Tennessee: Alan Wilson Trucking and Slayback Milk Transport (milk hauling); Southern Belle Dairy and Winchester Farms Dairy (milk processors); Bluegrass Tank and Equipment, Starr Stainless, Inc. (milk tank manufacturers); Dairy Farmers of America MidEast Council (dairy producer). Northwest Nuclear, LLC will collaborate in wireless asset tracking development. Balluff, Inc. will support the project with electronic sensors. The contamination of bulk food poses a high consequence threat to our society. The goal of the proposed research is to develop a wireless security system that will assure the delivery of milk, milk samples and security information from the dairy farm to the dairy plant. A systems approach will be used to identify the critical points for obtaining multi-dimensional security information: security event, time of occurrence, geographic location and identity of truck driver. The wireless system will be designed to accommodate the future likelihood that dairy herd information must be transported to the dairy plant with the milk. The system will be designed to operate automatically and require minimal or no attention by the milk truck driver. A demonstration system will be tested in collaboration with farms and dairy plants. Project developments will include a standard data collection protocol that is cost effective, compatible with existing milk transport infrastructure, has the support of the dairy farmers, milk haulers, and processors. The developed electronic system will be commercialized by presenting it to the collaborating dairy tank manufacturers, sensor manufactures and other interested parties. The milk transport security protocol may be applicable toward other bulk food transport situations both nationally and internationally. Successful development of this project will add significantly to the national security infrastructure for bulk food transport. More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you'd like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.
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