“An Introduction to a revolutionary technique in the field of agriculture that’s going to change the idea of farming to whole new level…!!”
Well “IoT” in agriculture uses robots, drones, remote sensors and computer imaging combined with continuously progressing machine learning and analytical tools for monitoring crops, surveying and mapping the fields and provide data to farmers for rational farm management plans to save both time and money.
But why “IoT” in Agriculture?
IoT is transforming the everyday objects that surrounds us into an ecosystem of information that will enrich our lives. From speakers to parking spaces to our homes IoT is bringing a revolution everywhere. Smart homes and other connected products will not be aimed at home life only they are also going to have a major effect in the industrial growth too.
1. ‘Climate’ plays a huge part:
Climate plays a very critical role for farming. And having improper knowledge about climate heavily deteriorates the quantity and quality of the crop production. But IoT solutions enable you to know the real-time weather conditions. Sensors are placed inside and outside of the agriculture fields. They collect data from the environment which is used to choose the right crops which can grow and sustain in the particular climatic conditions. The main target of the sensors in this field is to eliminate the need of physical presence during disturbing climate conditions.
2. Smart Farming:
Precision Agriculture/Precision Farming is one of the most famous applications of IoT in Agriculture. It makes the farming practice more precise and controlled by realizing smart farming applications such as livestock monitoring, vehicle tracking, field observation, and inventory monitoring. The goal of precision farming is to analyse the data, generated via sensors, to react accordingly. Precision Farming helps farmers to generate data with the help of sensors and analyse that information to take intelligent and quick decisions.
3. Greenhouses can also be ‘Smart’:
To make greenhouses smart, IoT has enabled weather stations to automatically adjust the climate conditions according to a particular set of instructions. Adoption of IoT in Greenhouses has eliminated the human intervention, thus making entire process cost-effective and increasing accuracy at the same time. For example, using solar-powered IoT sensors builds modern and inexpensive greenhouses. Also, Automatic and smart irrigation is carried out with the help of IoT.
4. Analysing Data (Cloud Based):
The conventional database system does not have enough storage for the data collected from the IoT sensors. Cloud based data storage and an end-to-end IoT Platform plays an important role in the smart agriculture system. These systems are estimated to play an important role such that better activities can be performed. In the IoT world, sensors are the primary source of collecting data on a large scale. The data is analysed and transformed to meaningful information using analytics tools. With the help of the IoT devices, you can know the real-time status of the crops by capturing the data from sensors.
5. ‘Drones’ in Agriculture:
Technological advancements have almost revolutionized the agricultural operations and the introduction of agricultural drones is the trending disruption. The Ground and Aerial drones are used for assessment of crop health, crop monitoring, planting, crop spraying, and field analysis. With proper strategy and planning based on real-time data, drone technology has given a high rise and makeover to the agriculture industry. Drones with thermal or multispectral sensors identify the areas that require changes in irrigation.
So how does “IoT” gets in Agriculture?
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There are numerous examples of leveraging IoT technologies in agriculture from versatile data analytics and management systems to futuristic robot pollinators including climate, agricultural sensors and smart greenhouses. For example, Agricultural sensors can help providing data that monitors and optimizes crops as well as adapt changing environmental factors. We can use INT G01 sensor to measure the apparent dielectric constant of the soil and Soil PH Sensor INT-PH1 is used in soil PH detection. Optical sensors like Vishay uses light to measure soil properties by being placed on conveyances or aerial platforms. Mechanical sensors measure soil compaction. For measuring the aerial condition in the area, air temperature sensors, interior temperature sensors, outlet duct and evaporator temperature sensors, pressure sensors, humidity sensors and sunload sensors can be used. Climate can be unpredictable, but by collecting and analysing environmental data throughout a cycle of time period can make the work a whole lot lesser. Agricultural Weather Stations are self-contained units that are placed at various locations throughout growing fields. These stations have a combination of sensors appropriate for the local crops and climate. Data is measured and recorded at predetermined intervals and is compiled and sent wirelessly to a central data logger.
Now the most basic question remains is… “will IoT farming be affordable ??”
According to Second International Conference on Intelligent Computing and Control Systems (ICICCS) in 2018 it was stated that each year many crops go waste due to a lack of optimal climatic conditions to support crop growth. Losses to the tune of over 11 billion dollars are reported each year in India alone. After this “sensors” sound a bit cheaper. Moreover, it uses the cheapest sources of energies that are available currently that is Solar PV and onshore wind.
All the above facts are the “pros” of IoT Farming…so what about the “cons”
The smart agriculture needs availability of internet continuously. Rural part of most of the developing countries do not fulfil this requirement. Moreover, internet connection is slower. The smart farming-based equipment’s require farmers to understand and learn the use of technology. This is major challenge in adopting smart agriculture farming at large scale across the countries.
Last but Not Least…A few things to consider before your smart farming solution:
1| Hardware
To build an IoT solution for agriculture, you need to choose the sensors for your device. Your choice will depend on the types of information you want to collect and the purpose of your solution. In any case, the quality of your sensors is crucial to the success of your product, it will depend on the accuracy of the collected data and its consistency.
2| The Brain
Analysis of the data should be at the core of every smart agriculture solution. The collected data itself will be of little help if you cannot make sense of it. Thus, you need to have powerful data analytics capabilities and apply predictive algorithms and machine learning in order to obtain actionable insights based on the collected data.
3| Maintenance
Maintenance of your hardware is a challenge that is of primary importance for IoT products in agriculture, as the sensors are typically used in the field and can be easily damaged. Thus, you need to make sure your hardware is durable and easy to maintain. Otherwise, you will need to replace your sensors more often than you would like.
4| Mobility
Smart farming applications should be tailored for use in the field. A farm manager should be able to access the information on site or remotely via a smartphone or desktop computer. Plus, each connected device should be autonomous and have enough wireless range to communicate with the other devices and send data to the central server.
5| Security
To ensure that your smart farming application performs well, you need a solid internal infrastructure. Your internal systems have to be secure. Failing to properly secure your system only increases the likeliness of someone breaking into it, stealing your data, or even taking control of your autonomous devices (can be drones or even tractors).
#Just a fact:
It is estimated over 30 billion devices could be connected to the Internet of Things by 2020. In recent times a “Robot” named “Row-Bot” is developed which is dedicated to increasing the efficiency of nitrogen fertilizer use in production agriculture.
Sources / References [If Any] : Internet