Agricloud is a system of smart farming based on the development of a web application for watering crops which facilitates monitoring, evaluating data and watering.
In the previous solution there was a Wireless Sensor System (WSN) based on tree topology, that consists of sensor units and a base station acting as a gateway to a web platform. Wireless Sensor Units (WSUs) were used to get environmental data such as temperature, humidity, soil humidity, etc., which are sent to a base station named Wireless Information Unit (WIU) through a Zigbee.
WIU has a microcontroller, a GSM/GPRS, a Zigbee, an RTC clock and solenoids. Its main functionalities are the data aggregation and transmission to a web server. Furthermore, it provides interactive communication through a web application by receiving commands.
One of the proposed improvements was the replacement of WSUs existing microcontroller with such consuming ultra low power.
Another improvement was to update the communication technology used in the WIU, such as Nb-IoT, in order to improve bandwidth, reduce communication cost and increase the battery duration.
The main goal of Agricloud is to improve the existing Wireless Sensor System (WSN) agriculture platform using advanced technologies in order to:
The shift in consumer preferences for higher standards of food safety and quality together with the unavailability of laborers, are some of the driving factors for proposing a system for smart farming that supports both demand driven and automated irrigation, sensor networks.
Agricloud aspires to improve the already existing WSN that acts as a gateway to a web platform using Wireless Sensor Units (WSUs) to get environmental data which are sent to a base station named Wireless Information Unit (WIU), by proposing:
Through the optimization of the product and the improvement of the idea both in terms of hardware and software the proposed system for smart farming: