A Remote Sensor Network using Android Things and Cloud Computing for the Food Reserve Agency in Zambia

Mulima Chibuye,Jackson Phiri

doi:10.14569/ijacsa.2017.081150

Abstract

In order to introduce modern warehousing, improve upon the storage of grain and grain marketing business processes for the Food Reserve Agency in Zambia, a prototype of a remote sensor network was developed and built as a proof of concept for a much wider deployment using cloud computing and the internet of things concept. It was determined that a wireless sensor network would aid the Food Reserve Agency in analytics, timely action and real-time reporting from all its food depots spread-out throughout Zambia. Google’s Android Things Platform was used in order to achieve the objectives. Advantages of Android Things over traditional platforms that have been used to develop wireless sensor networks were looked into and presented in this paper.

Highlights

Since its establishment Zambia’s Food Reserve Agency (FRA) has been a key in ensuring food security for the nation
The baseline study was used in order to identify whether FRA would benefit from the inclusion of ICT’s in the daily business activities and what perceived benefit these would have on the organization as a whole and on the grain marketing business in Zambia
There were challenges faced in collecting the empirical data that it was hoped would ascertain whether the Food Reserve Agency would require ICT’s in order to better manage the grain marketing business

Summary

Introduction

Since its establishment Zambia’s Food Reserve Agency (FRA) has been a key in ensuring food security for the nation. Grain marketing is a key activity of the Food Reserve Agency. The major output of the agency though still remains in ensuring that the nation at large has enough food stored up for the future. The agency has been key in ensuring that the commodity price for especially maize is regulated so as not to burden the citizens of Zambia with overwhelming costs [1]. This key organization has been managed by the same processes and procedures since its inception in 1995

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion