Wireless Sensor Networks: Sensor Network for Better, Efficient and Automated (BEA) Farming

Diagram representing overall architecture for BEA farming

Wireless sensor networks have wide variety of applications . I would like to brief on how WSN can be used for better,efficient and automated farming. I and my friends got this idea during a casual discussion. So this articles belongs to them also. [:)].

Sensor network can be used in agriculture to monitor, the moisture content in soil , the fertility of soil, the surrounding weather conditions of the farm. Various sensor nodes can be deployed in the farm which have the capability to monitor the moisture,fertility and temperature. These sensor nodes can in turn give data to a gateway or a farmers mobile. Mobile is one of the very common devices it can act as gateway to collect data from all the senors nodes deployed in the farm. The data can be obtained whenever the farmer goes to his farm along with his mobile or there can be gateway, which aggregates the data from all the senor nodes in the farm, and sends it to the farmers mobile.

Once the data is available at the farmer's mobile he can send this data to experts or his friends or use this data himself to get any advice on farming if necessary. The data obtained on moisture level can be used to water the whole farm appropriately , such that none of the part of the farm will be over watered neither will less watered. Actuators can be used to take appropriate decisions based on sensor readings . There can be server to which all farmers can connect using their mobile and get necessary data. The server can also be used to store the data provided by the farmers. In this way all the agriculture lands can be connected , the data provided by all farmers can be used for various research purposes like to check what fertilizer level and moisture level has resulted in best yield. The data collected from many farmers at a place will help in building a detailed picture of farming at that respective place.

The shared server can also be used to share information such as , crops that can be grown on particular type of soil, best agriculture practices , present price for a particular type of crop etc. These information can be sent to farmers mobile so that farmers are updated with latest happenings.

The sensor nodes can be connected to the gateway or mobile using 802.15.4 (Low rate Wireless Personal Area network ) and the mobile and server can be connected using Internet or using other mobile communication system such as GSM or CDMA. The common sensors that can be used are soil moisture sensor, soil nutrients sensor , temperature sensor and rain sensors.

The diagram below makes the explanation given above more clearer.