AgriLogger: A New Wireless Sensor for Monitoring Agrometeorological Data in Areas Lacking Communication Networks.

Mohamed Idbella,Giuliano Bonanomi,Stefano Mazzoleni,Graziano Gagliarde,Mariano Iadaresta,Alberto Mennella

doi:10.3390/s20061589

Abstract

The use of wireless technologies in the field of agriculture, or so-called smart or precision agriculture, is considered as one of the main efforts applied nowadays to multiply the food production on earth. However, wireless sensor network (WSN) technology is still at its early development stage and its application in agriculture and food industry is still rare due to the lack of farmers’ awareness and outreach about the matter. This paper presents a new agro-sensor named AgriLogger with an aim to collect, store for long periods and transmit agrometeorological data represented by temperature and relative humidity in remote areas hard to reach and not served by telecommunication networks. The sensor exhibits long battery life, in the order of 10 years, thanks to low consumption technologies and to hardware sleep/wake up approach. It can be remotely placed on preselected sites through a customized drone. This latter, equipped with a dedicated payload, can then return on the sites where sensors have been placed, and, while hovering, wakes up the single devices and uploads their collected data through local wireless network. Field tests have demonstrated that the sensor, after being placed manually in two different positions, inside and outside a vineyard canopy, is able to collect and store successfully agrometeorological data like temperature and relative humidity. Moreover, the use of a drone potentially allows the collection of data from remote areas and, therefore, is able to provide a periodical monitoring of agro-ecological conditions.

Highlights

The industry of agriculture provides the world with biological products that are sensitive to both environmental conditions variation and applied management practices [1,2]
Precision farming encompasses a large array of different technologies incorporating sensors, information systems, enhanced machinery, and decision supporting systems with a main goal of re-organizing the whole agricultural system in the direction of a low-input and high-efficiency for a sustainable agriculture [4,5]
Our results prove that AgriLogger, in the field, was able to collect and store, for long periods estimated for more than 10 years, and consistently, agrometeorological parameters data in a

Summary

Introduction

The industry of agriculture provides the world with biological products that are sensitive to both environmental conditions variation and applied management practices [1,2]. Precision farming encompasses a large array of different technologies incorporating sensors, information systems, enhanced machinery, and decision supporting systems with a main goal of re-organizing the whole agricultural system in the direction of a low-input and high-efficiency for a sustainable agriculture [4,5] To attain such a goal, precision farming provides the means for observing, assessing and controlling agricultural practices from the quotidian herd management through horticulture to field crop production. A UAS platform with proper sensors, based on wireless sensor network (WSN), is becoming a common combination in this field of research offering a flexible, convenient, and cost-effective way to provide enquiries about the desired observations on agricultural parameters [9]. Zhan et al [11] have moved a step further and proposed an optimization solution to jointly ameliorate the WSN wake-up schedule with the drone’s pathway in order to minimize the energy consumption

Methods

Results

Conclusion