Internet of Things (IoT) for Smart Precision Agriculture

Abstract

The scarcity of clean water resources around the globe has generated a need for their optimum utilization. Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, based on the application-specific sensors’ data acquisition and intelligent processing, are bridging the gaps between the cyber and physical worlds. IoT based smart irrigation management systems can help in achieving optimum water-resource utilization in the precision farming landscape. This paper presents an open-source technology-based smart system to predict the irrigation requirements of a field using the sensing of ground parameters like soil moisture, soil temperature, and environmental conditions along with the weather forecast data from the Internet. The sensing nodes, involved in the ground and environmental sensing, consider soil moisture, air temperature, and relative humidity of the crop field. This mainly focused on wastage of water, which is a major concern of the modern era. It is also time-saving, allows a user to monitor environmental data for agriculture using a web browser and Email, cost-effectiveness, environmental protection, low maintenance and operating cost and efficient irrigation service. The proposed system is made up of two parts: hardware and software. The hardware consists of a Base Station Unit (BSU) and several Terminal Nodes (TNs). The software is made up of the programming of the Wi-Fi network and the system protocol. In this paper, an MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transportation) broker was built on the BSU and TU board.