A Versatile, Low-Power and Low-Cost IoT Device for Field Data Gathering in Precision Agriculture Practices

Abstract

Spatial and temporal variability characterization in Precision Agriculture (PA) practices is often accomplished by proximity data gathering devices, which acquire data from a wide variety of sensors installed within the vicinity of crops. Proximity data acquisition usually depends on a hardware solution to which some sensors can be coupled, managed by a software that may (or may not) store, process and send acquired data to a back-end using some communication protocol. The sheer number of both proprietary and open hardware solutions, together with the diversity and characteristics of available sensors, is enough to deem the task of designing a data acquisition device complex. Factoring in the harsh operational context, the multiple DIY solutions presented by an active online community, available in-field power approaches and the different communication protocols, each proximity monitoring solution can be regarded as singular. Data acquisition devices should be increasingly flexible, not only by supporting a large number of heterogeneous sensors, but also by being able to resort to different communication protocols, depending on both the operational and functional contexts in which they are deployed. Furthermore, these small and unattended devices need to be sufficiently robust and cost-effective to allow greater in-field measurement granularity 365 days/year. This paper presents a low-cost, flexible and robust data acquisition device that can be deployed in different operational contexts, as it also supports three different communication technologies: IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee, LoRa/LoRaWAN and GRPS. Software and hardware features, suitable for using heat pulse methods to measure sap flow, leaf wetness sensors and others are embedded. Its power consumption is of only 83 μA during sleep mode and the cost of the basic unit was kept below the EUR 100 limit. In-field continuous evaluation over the past three years prove that the proposed solution—SPWAS’21—is not only reliable but also represents a robust and low-cost data acquisition device capable of gathering different parameters of interest in PA practices.

Cluster-Based Communication Protocol and Architecture for a Wastewater Purification System Intended for Irrigation

“…On one hand, some proposals combine different wireless technologies. The work in [24] allows the use of different technologies but the transceiver for wireless communication needs to be changed according to the desired technology. The work in [23] includes RFID and QR for the identification of the irrigation facilities but it needs the user to walk or drive at a close distance to access the information.…”

“…The proposal in [24] included some type of electrical error recovery that was not specified in detail. However, our proposal incorporates fault tolerance and recovery considering all the possible forms of malfunction that can affect the system.…”

“…Other proposals focus on on or two of these aspects. The system presented in [24] also included multiple parameters but water quality was not considered. Therefore, our system is able to include multiple functionalities and improve on the existing solutions for each specific functionality.…”

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“…The growth of small data collecting units has been rapid in recent years as they can cover data details for broad coverage, enhancing understanding of crop spatial and temporal variability [40]. Sensors with smaller dimensions, lower costs, and higher performance that can be deployed and integrated into production processes allow for more data and, ultimately, more information [41].…”

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“…A significant number of research works related to PA are found in the state of the art. Specifically, the systems that use Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) [ 8 ], have been widely tested in diverse crops, under different conditions [ 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ]. Some of the works are focused on evaluating the network structure in terms of coverage range, throughput, latency or consumption, among other common parameters related to electronic design and communication techniques.…”