Integrating wireless sensing and decision support technologies for real-time farmland monitoring and support for effective decision making

Abstract

This paper presents the design of a (i) soil sensing and monitoring wireless sensor network (S2M-WSN) that can sense and monitor farmland with distributed and networked motes equipped with multiple soil sensors and (ii) a prototype decision support system (DSS) that analyses the soil data received from S2M-WSN using statistical methods, stored rules and knowledge base (KB) and auto-transmits alerts on the mobile phones of end-users. Both S2M-WSN and the DSS are integrated through (iii) predefined data frame format and interface protocol. The developed system has been deployed both in the laboratory and real crop conditions for verification, validation and performance evaluation. The system is evaluated by considering various performance metrics such as ambiguities associated with data, data packet delivery rates, support delivery performance ratio, system response time, and resultant plant growth. The developed system empowers the end users with assistance in on-field decision making through relevant advisories and alerts at right time on their mobile phones. The authors believe that the developed system would definitely bridge the information gap between end-users and domain experts for sustainable growth of agriculture.