Month: January 2020

An IoT Architecture to Enhance Agricultural Yield and Efficiency

This report proposes an IoT ready solution to the present-day issues facing Australian agriculture.  A review of current literature (2016-2019) is undertaken to advise the technological opportunities that exist within current solutions to support this architecture.  Based on this research, an IoT based solution which includes a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), field automation and a user interface is proposed. The ability to notify farmers of any changes to the WSN variables and control various systems is included.  Data from the WSN is stored in a database for processing and can be queried via an internet user interface and smartphone application. Future research includes the implementation and testing of security protocols, along with real-world trials to test the viability of the system.  The IoT architecture proposed would be well suited to assist Australian farmers in automating their systems, improving efficiency and yield.

Ayaz, M., Ammad-Uddin, M., Sharif, Z., Mansour, A., & Aggoune, E. (2019). Internet-of-Things (IoT)-Based Smart Agriculture: Toward Making the Fields Talk. IEEE Access, 7, 129551-129583. Retrieved from http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=8784034&isnumber=8600701

In this article Ayaz, Ammad-Uddin, Sharif, Mansour & Aggoune highlight the potential of a range of technologies that could be incorporated into an IoT based agricultural system.  The authors analyse an array of wireless sensors and the expected challenges of integrating these technologies with traditional farming processes.  Their research focuses on assessing wireless sensors, IoT tractors, harvesting robots, communication protocols, smartphones, cloud computing, UAV’s, food safety and food transportation and their potential application into current agricultural systems such as soil sampling, irrigation, fertiliser, crop disease, pest management, yield monitoring, forecasting and harvesting. The article is very useful to my research topic, as Ayaz et al. have concisely analysed the majority of the sensors I am considering to use in my solution.  The main limitation of the article is that it does not present an agricultural solution but rather reviews technology that could be used in a solution thus the authors need to research the use of the technologies they analysed in a real-world system to test their limitations as a complete integrated architecture.  This article will be useful in my research for supplementary information about wireless sensors.