The Intelligent Container automatically adapts to the supervision requirements of the loaded freight. A dynamic quality model calculates the effects of sub-optimal transport conditions. The quality model is represented by a mobile agent in form of a small software program that accompanies the freight item along the supply chain. The freight items are equipped with passive RFID-Tags that contain the address of the system that currently holds the virtual freight representation. After being transferred to the local system, the agent continues supervising the freight within the transport hold. If the system foresees a risk in which the quality of a freight item may drop below an acceptable limit before the destination is reached, the agent contacts the transport supervision. Either a human operator or an automated route and transport planning system initiates necessary actions.

The agent collects data from the surroundings by using wireless sensor networks that autonomously organize themselves. New nodes are automatically identified and added to the network in an ad hoc manner. Reorganization of the network topology automatically compensates for the failure of one or more nodes (for example, due to empty batteries or being out of range).

Communication security in the sensor network is a major concern and unauthorized access to the data must be prevented. We employ state-of-the-art encryption and authentication methods to help secure the network. In order to improve reliability, self-tests for sensors and methods for cross-network plausibility checking are integrated into the system.

Since the nodes of the wireless sensor network are battery-operated, we have paid particular attention to energy efficiency. Unnecessary network nodes may be deactivated by an intelligent power management system in order to conserve energy and thereby increase the system lifetime.