Design and Empirical Validation of a LoRaWAN IoT Smart Irrigation System

Abstract

In some parts of the world, climate change has led to periods of drought that require managing efficiently the scarce water and energy resources. This paper proposes an IoT smart irrigation system specifically designed for urban areas where remote IoT devices have no direct access to the Internet or to the electrical grid, and where wireless communications are difficult due to the existence of long distances and multiple obstacles. To tackle such issues, this paper proposes a LoRaWAN-based architecture that provides long distance and communications with reduced power consumption. Specifically, the proposed system consists of IoT nodes that collect sensor data and send them to local fog computing nodes or to a remote cloud, which determine an irrigation schedule that considers factors such as the weather forecast or the moist detected by nearby nodes. It is essential to deploy the IoT nodes in locations within the provided coverage range and that guarantee good speed rates and reduced energy consumption. Due to this reason, this paper describes the use of an in-house 3D-ray launching radio-planning tool to determine the best locations for IoT nodes on a real medium-scale scenario (a university campus) that was modeled with precision, including obstacles such as buildings, vegetation, or vehicles. The obtained simulation results were compared with empirical measurements to assess the operating conditions and the radio planning tool accuracy. Thus, it is possible to optimize the wireless network topology and the overall performance of the network in terms of coverage, cost, and energy consumption.

Machine Learning Based Prediction of Reference Evapotranspiration (ET0) Using IoT

“…Nawandar et al [39] proposed an intelligent IoT-based smart irrigation system to conserve irrigation water. Fraga-Lamas et al [40] proposed IoT-assisted smart irrigation by exploiting the LoRaWAN-based architecture to avoid the unavailability of the Internet in remote areas. Leh et al proposed [41] a soil moisture-based smart irrigation water system by assessment of soil moisture conditions for long-distance communication with reduced power consumption.…”

Comprehensive Survey of IoT, Machine Learning, and Blockchain for Health Care Applications: A Topical Assessment for Pandemic Preparedness, Challenges, and Solutions

“…It recognizes the noise level of signals assumed from a threshold range. LoRaWAN is used by those applications where a huge number of devices are integrated for securely sharing of data using memory, and require minimal power consumption such as smart cities, smart hospitals, and smart homes [53][54][55].…”

Smart Control and Energy Efficiency in Irrigation Systems Using LoRaWAN

“…Some authors have developed different IoT devices, as Fernández-Ahumada et al [18] presented a low-cost device for automatic irrigation based on an ESP32-LoRa microcontroller and Internet connection through the Sigfox network. Fraga-Lamas et al [19] proposed an IoT smart irrigation system specifically designed for remote urban areas. Chazarra-Zapata et al [20] presented an IoT device that optimises battery power consumption, GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) with an Nb-IoT (Narrow-band Internet of Things) system for communication and sending information every two hours to reduce energy consumption.…”