PDA College of Engineering

Baggage Tracking using IoT

Abstract:People who travel often have a fear of
Anuradha T., Assistant Professor, PDA College of Engineering,

Mohammed Abdur Rahman, Juned Khan

losing their baggage during connecting flights. tracking device through which we would be able to
Although the occurrence of such a case is found to track the bag. With this an alarm could also be
be about 5%, it is important to note that the regular connected to the device which would ring whenever
air traffic is in millions. This IoT device can be the bags get away from the owner and gets out of a
installed in every baggage through which the users particular range and area. For this purpose, a map is
can always keep track of their baggage. This helps also created using google geolocation API, in which
them locate the lost baggage easily. The IoT device the area has been set and predefined through which
communicates with the mobile device to give real- we can track the bag once it gets away from the
time location. owner. On the map we can see the location of the
bag where it is as the markers are being dropped
Index Terms: Arduino Board, luggage tracking,
which gives us the location of the bag as it moves
map, IoT.
away from the owner. Also certain range flags have
been set which will notify the owner on the map
timely that what is the distance between the owner
1. Introduction and his bag like “under 20m”, “under 30m”.

L oss of luggage can happen with anyone

irrespective of the circumstances and
conditions. Luggage and bags with
important documents or precious things and can be
lost or theft with which people can lose their
2. Related Works

In recent years not much has been done in order to

track the lost bags, instead video monitoring is a
important material. Generally, it is seen that people way through which the areas are monitored by
get robbed in public areas like railway stations, bus human beings and the suspicious bags or robbed
stands and other public and private areas. Also activities are monitored. Also some of the bag
people can even forget their luggage and bags which monitoring techniques has been implemented in
can have important and necessary things. So it is order to check the things which are present inside
very necessary to track down the bags in case of loss the bag so that they don’t pose a threat to the
and theft. A lot of other tracking systems and security. Some of the techniques present are:
devices are already present like car tracking systems
and shoe tracking systems.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network [1]Konas bags offers luggage and bag packs that we
of objects like buildings, vehicles, etc which are can track from the smartphone. With the help of the
embedded with sensors, electronics and other tracking device present in the bag, we can track the
network related things which helps these objects to device through the application installed in the
collect and exchange information. IOT allows the smartphone.
objects to be sensed and controlled from a remote
access point, which does the integration of Disadvantage
computers with the physical world which improves
financial benefit, accuracy and efficiency. When IoT •In this we can only track the bags once they have
is connected with sensors, it encompasses been lost and not when they are theft, so this doesn’t
technologies such as smart homes, vehicle tracking, provide the feature of providing the surety that
monitoring and controlling home appliances and whether the bag would ever be recovered or not.
ultimately smart cities. Everything is unique and • Also, we won’t be knowing when the bag was lost
identifiable and moreover becomes easy accessible or theft so if we get to know about it few hours later,
when it is augmented with the Internet and computer then it can be a possibility that may have transported
infrastructure. or travelled far away and a lot of distance.
In this project a luggage tracking system would be
created in order to track the bags which are lost. In
this, the luggage bag would contain the hardware of
the tracking system or simply we can say the

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Bag Analytics/Map
Figure 1. System Model

[2]A lot of trackable tags are available which can be [4] Bag Journey Application, Self-service drop-off
tied with the bag in order to track the bags when luggage is a great time saver and passenger
they are lost. experience enhancement, but no matter who checks
•These tags have inbuilt GPS chip through which the luggage in, success still depends on how it
the company would track the lost bag. There are a comes out.
lot of companies in the market who are providing
these tags with different features like dynotag, The Bag journey software solution by event host
LugLoc and Robot Check. SITA can contribute to system-wide improvements;
with end-to-end baggage tracking status updates to
Disadvantage the systems of airlines and airports, including
Smartphone and tablet apps used by operation staff.
• Again the tags don’t notify you as soon as the bag While a number of firms offer baggage management
is theft or lost, instead when we find out that the bag software solutions, SITA is still at the lead of
has been lost then only we try to track them down. aviation communications and IT application
• The tags don’t provide you a mobile or computer services.
frontend interface to track and view the location of
the bag, instead the company owning the tag would
try to track down the location, so the owner is [5] Baggage Handling Systems Upgrades, Software
always in dark about what is exactly happening. and apps are great, but bags still need to be moved
from the check-in desk to the aircraft hold and back
through the arrival’s airport’s baggage handling
[3] Trackdot is a luggage tracker device which is system before they reach their owner again arrivals.
placed inside the bag when a person is travelling. It
works on ground-based cellular technology and Our favorites from the show, for state-of-the-art
microelectronics. When in an airplane during automation, were systems by the German company
takeoff, it shuts down automatically and enters in an Siemans, the French group Alstef Automation, and
airplane mode and again activates during landing the Crisplant system by the BeumerGroup from
when the pilot applies brakes. Denmark.

Disadvantage
[6] Smart Bag Tags, Hong Kong International
• It is very costly approx. $56. (HKIA), SkyTrax’s 2014 winner for the best
• It is available in western countries baggage handling system, puts great stock in RFID
•Does not provide instant notification if the bag is technology. It as the first airport in the world to
theft or lost which is a major drawback. introduce RFID luggage tags in 2008. Lyngsoe
•Not available in India. Systems introduced this RFID solution at HKIA and
became world-leaders in RFID solutions. They’ve
also developed a comprehensive network to help the

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industry further improve baggage handling. Telecommunications and Computer Networks

(SoftCOM), 2011 19th International Conference on.
IEEE, 2011.
3. Conclusion and Future Scope

This article shows the implementation of tracking [8] De Donno, Danilo, Luca Catarinucci, and
the bags which are either lost or stolen using IoT. Luciano Tarricone. "A battery-assisted
Certain methods have been shown which help in sensorenhanced RFID tag enabling heterogeneous
understanding the basic concepts of the work. wireless sensor networks." Sensors Journal, IEEE
Similar works have been shown with their 14.4 (2014): 1048-1055.
drawbacks and how they could be overcome.

We plan to design and implement the discussed [9] Colella, Riccardo, et al. "Advances in the design
work in the future time. of smart, multi-function, RFID-enabled devices."
Antennas and Propagation Society International
Symposium (APSURSI), 2014 IEEE. IEEE, 2014.
References

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