Abstract
This work describes the design of innovative IoT-oriented farm management system that employs low-cost WSN for detecting soil, environmental and crops parameters that properly processed, in combination with weather forecasts, are used to determine future farming activities based on agronomic models implemented in the software platform. Goals of carried out research activity are to guarantee production both qualitatively and quantitatively of cultivated crops, to increase company income and reduce environmental impacts; achieving these objectives is a prerequisite for implementing of sustainable agriculture. Connection between traditional cropping systems and innovative technologies is achieved through the utilization of low-cost wireless electronic modules for acquiring data from connected sensors. The fertigation system operation is supported by solar-powered low-cost WSN capable of constantly monitoring soil and environmental parameters; thanks to sensor nodes properly positioned in cultivated land or greenhouse, interest parameters of both air and soil are detected and transmitted to on-cloud database, to allow monitoring and remote control from enabled users (farmer or agronomist). For this aim, an application specifically realized and tested during the different fertigation system’s functional tests, allows users to visualize and eventually remotely intervene by using a smart-phone or tablet.
Highlights
The synergy between sectors belonging to different fields such as electronic engineering, robotics, information technology, agronomy, agricultural mechanics and telecommunications represents the trend of the agriculture sector in which the development of sustainable agriculture is possible [1]
The cloud platform periodically updates the farming management system by using Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) data and those provided by weather service, for evaluating, according to the answers provided by the agronomic models, any change of parameters thresholds relating to the programmed agricultural processes; in this way, irrigations number and time duration, beside the amount and typology of fertilizers, are optimized
Low cost sensor nodes based on NodeMCU module and commercial sensors were used, power supplied by solar harvesting solution, for detecting environmental, soil and crops parameters and sending them by Wi-Fi technology to the control unit to be processed by comparison with threshold values, in order to control the agricultural processes such as fertigation cycles optimizing fertilizers amount and typology
Summary
The synergy between sectors belonging to different fields such as electronic engineering, robotics, information technology, agronomy, agricultural mechanics and telecommunications represents the trend of the agriculture sector in which the development of sustainable agriculture is possible [1]. In order to address the challenges of smart and sustainable farming, the complex agricultural eco -systems need to be better analysed; nowadays, the digital technologies can contribute to improv e the sustainable agriculture and help the farmer, thanks to the provided possibility to monitor and measure continuously various quantities related to environment and soil as well as to crops growth, producing large quantities of data in an unprecedented pace [2]. The analysis of these data, by the IoT technologies, will enable farmers and companies to extract value from them, thereby improving their productivity. It has become indispensable to equip outdoor agricultural structures with control systems including electric panels, electronic equipment dedicated to specific tasks, for example, to detect environmental or crops’ parameters such as humidity, luminosity, CO2 concentration, etc
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