Novel Electronic Logistic Coding Using Software-Defined Multiplexing Codes

Internet of things (IoT) has emerged as a crucial technology nowadays. To efficiently transmit data across smart devices, short packets and software-defined networks (SDNs) are employed in IoT. In contrast to the prevalent packet-based communications, we recently devised new software-defined multiplexing codes (SDMCs) which enable packetless communications in the future. The SDMC scheme simply relies on simple algorithms to insert delimiters as needed such that no fixed packet boundaries are required anymore. In this paper, the SDMC capacity of information fusion is further extended to electronic logistics. Two popular existing logistic coding approaches have been addressed, namely Dabbawala graphic code (DGC) and baggage information message (BIM) protocol. Then we compare the electronic implementation of DGC and BIM using the conventional packet-based technique with our proposed new packetless method. Our new packetless method can lead to better coding efficiency than the conventional technique when the delimiter-length is not very large; it can also facilitate selective encryption over important partial information in the message while the conventional technique cannot. Our proposed new approach is a very flexible and efficient scheme for future electronic logistics transmitted by software-defined edge-computing devices.