Internet of Things Based Flexible Architectures for Public Distribution System in Lockdown Situations

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak-related lockdowns have shown that the current public distribution systems (PDS) are inefficient, as it does not reach the needy on-time. Considering a vast country like India, where the population is large and unevenly distributed, the PDS is complicated, aiming to reach out to individuals on-time. If the authorities know in prior, the urgency and demand for food supplies, they can efficiently plan food distribution to reach the individuals quickly. In this work, we propose solutions for the said problem through the Internet of Things (IoT) based architectures, which are inspired by our prior works [1] and [2]. The proposed IoT architecture utilizes a wireless device, wireless data network infrastructure, and cloud technology. The wireless device triggers a ticket or notification to the concerned authority, identifying the person in need of food supplies and the overall demand in a geographic area. A case study-based design approach is followed for designing these IoT architectures.