IoT (Internet of Things) and Agriculture
During recent years, one of the most important things scaling to new heights and creating a benchmark is Internet of Things (IoT). It is indeed the future of communication that has transformed Things /Objects of the real world into smarter devices. IoT is a system where objects, animalsor people are interconnected computing devices, are capable of data transmission through network without the need for human-human or human computer interaction.
Among the major areas are Smart Health Care, Smart Cities, Smart Industry, Autonomous Vehicles, Smart Agriculture, Precision Agriculture, Smart Homes and others (Shang et al., 2015; Khan et al).
The entire world is migrating towards IoT, in the coming years which will have an enormous impact on our lives. Beginning from appliances used at home to huge machineries used in industries, entirety will become smart.
Source: http://www.engineersgallery.com
Specific IoT applications in agriculture include: Precision Agriculture, Agriculture Drones, Livestock Monitoring, Smart Greenhouses, etc.
A. Precision Farming
Precision farming is a process or a practice that makes the farming procedure more accurate and controlled for raising livestock and growing of crops. The use of IT and items like sensors, autonomous vehicles, automated hardware, control systems, robotics, etc in this approach are key components.
Precision agriculture in the recent years has become one of the most famous applications of IoT in agricultural sector and a vast number of organizations have started using this technique around the world.
The products and services offered by IoT systems include soil moisture probes, VRI optimization, and virtual optimizer PRO, and so on. VRI (Variable Rate Irrigation) optimization is a process that maximizes the profitability on irrigated crop fields with soil variability, thereby improving yields and increasing water use efficiency.
B. Agriculture Drones Agricultural drones are a very good example of IoT applications in Agriculture. Agriculture industries today have become one of the major industries where drones can incorporate. Two types of drones, that is, ground-based and aerial-based drones are being incorporated in agriculture in many ways such as, for crop health assessment, irrigation, planting, and soil & field analysis
The benefits that the usage of drones brings to the table include, ease of use, time-saving, crop health imaging, integrated GIS mapping, and the ability to increase yields. The drone technology will give a high-tech makeover to the agriculture industry by making use of strategy and planning based on real-time data collection and processing.
The farmers through drones can enter the details of what field they want to survey. Select an altitude or ground resolution from which they what data of the fields. From the data collected by the drone, useful insights can be drawn on various factors such as plant counting and yield prediction, plant health indices, plant height measurement, canopy cover mapping, nitrogen content in wheat, drainage mapping, and so on. The drone collects data and images that are thermal, multispectral and visual during the flight and then lands at the same location it took off initially.
C. Livestock Monitoring
IoT applications help farmers to collect data regarding the location, well-being, and health of their cattle. This information helps them in identifying the condition of their livestock. Such as, finding animals that are sick so, that they can separate from the herd, preventing the spread of the disease to the entire cattle. The feasibility of ranchers to locate their cattle with the help of IoT based sensors helps in bringing down labour costs by a substantial amount.
One example of an IoT system in use by a company is JMB North America. Which is an organization that provides cow monitoring solutions to cattle producers? Out of the many solutions provided, one of the solutions is to help the cattle owners observe their cows that are pregnant and about to give birth. From them, a battery that is sensor powered is expelled when its water breaks. Information is then sent to the herd manager or the rancher. The sensor thus enables farmers will more focus.
D. Smart Greenhouses
Greenhouse farming is a technique that enhances the yield of crops, vegetables, fruits etc. Greenhouses control environmental parameters in two ways; either through manual intervention or a proportional control mechanism. However, since manual intervention has disadvantages such as production loss, energy loss, and labour cost, these methods are less effective. A smart greenhouse through IoT embedded systems not only monitors intelligently but also controls the climate. Thereby eliminating any need for human intervention.
Different sensors that measure the environmental parameters according to the plant requirement are used for controlling the environment in a smart greenhouse. Then, a cloud server creates for remotely accessing the system when it connects using IoT.
Inside the greenhouse, the cloud server helps in the processing of data and applies a control action. This design provides optimal and cost-effective solutions to the farmers with minimal and almost no manual intervention. The sensors in the IoT system in the greenhouse provide information on temperature, pressure, humidity, light levels.
Conclusion
Hence, today we learned how agriculture fields are benefitted from IOT systems. We covered the different IoT Applications in Agriculture and how they are made use of. We will learn more about IOT in detail in the upcoming tutorials. Furthermore, stay tuned to learn more interesting things that you can do with this technology.
References
https://data-flair.training/blogs/iot-applications-in-agriculture/
https://data-flair.training/blogs/iot-applications-in-agriculture/
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