scholarly journals Monitoring Soil and Ambient Parameters in the IoT Precision Agriculture Scenario: An Original Modeling Approach Dedicated to Low-Cost Soil Water Content Sensors

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (15) ◽  
pp. 5110
Author(s):  
Pisana Placidi ◽  
Renato Morbidelli ◽  
Diego Fortunati ◽  
Nicola Papini ◽  
Francesco Gobbi ◽  
...  

A low power wireless sensor network based on LoRaWAN protocol was designed with a focus on the IoT low-cost Precision Agriculture applications, such as greenhouse sensing and actuation. All subsystems used in this research are designed by using commercial components and free or open-source software libraries. The whole system was implemented to demonstrate the feasibility of a modular system built with cheap off-the-shelf components, including sensors. The experimental outputs were collected and stored in a database managed by a virtual machine running in a cloud service. The collected data can be visualized in real time by the user with a graphical interface. The reliability of the whole system was proven during a continued experiment with two natural soils, Loamy Sand and Silty Loam. Regarding soil parameters, the system performance has been compared with that of a reference sensor from Sentek. Measurements highlighted a good agreement for the temperature within the supposed accuracy of the adopted sensors and a non-constant sensitivity for the low-cost volumetric water contents (VWC) sensor. Finally, for the low-cost VWC sensor we implemented a novel procedure to optimize the parameters of the non-linear fitting equation correlating its analog voltage output with the reference VWC.

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Sudharsan ◽  
J. Adinarayana ◽  
A. K. Tripathy ◽  
S. Ninomiya ◽  
M. Hirafuji ◽  
...  

Recent technological developments allowed to envision the low-power (solar power) and low-cost (open hardware) sensor devices (Agrisens/FieldServer/Flux Tower/FieldTwitter) with multimode (ZigBee/WiFi/3G/WebGIS) information and communication technologies (ICTs), a model in which is christened as GeoSense. Integrating these multimode and multi-level communication systems with distributed ambient sensory network location-based service (LBS) is a challenging task, which could be a potential technology for monitoring various natural phenomena. This integrated model is introduced to provide and assist the rural stakeholders with real-time decision support system (DSS) with dynamic information and modeling services for precision agriculture through GeoSense cloud service. This GeoSense research has been experimented in semiarid tropics in India under Indo-Japan initiative on multi-disciplinary ICT program.


2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Sydney Dutra Folly ◽  
Aracy Sousa Senra

ABSTRACT. We describe the construction and testing of a simple and efficient low-cost resistivimeter designed for use in practical classes in Applied Geophysics. The equipment was successfully tested in a vertical electrical sounding (VES) performed on sandy terrain within the campus of the Universidade Federal de Sergipe, Brazil. The VES results were in good agreement with the profiles obtained from two boreholes located approximately 500 m from the test area, clearly demonstrating the efficiency of the equipment and the adopted methodology.Keywords: vertical electrical sounding, electrical resistivity, resistivity profile. RESUMO. Neste artigo, descrevemos a construção e o teste de um resistivímetro de baixo custo, simples e eficiente, concebido para ser utilizado em aulas práticas de Geofísica Aplicada. O equipamento foi testado com a realização de uma sondagem elétrica vertical (SEV) em um terreno arenoso localizado no campus da Universidade Federal de Sergipe, Brasil. Os resultados obtidos nesta SEV apresentaram boa concordância com os perfis observados em dois poços de sondagem localizados a 500 m da área de teste, fato que comprovou a eficiência do equipamento e da metodologia adotada.Palavras-chave: sondagem elétrica vertical, resistividade elétrica, perfil de resistividade. 


Agriculture ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 114
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Pentoś ◽  
Krzysztof Pieczarka ◽  
Kamil Serwata

Soil spatial variability mapping allows the delimitation of the number of soil samples investigated to describe agricultural areas; it is crucial in precision agriculture. Electrical soil parameters are promising factors for the delimitation of management zones. One of the soil parameters that affects yield is soil compaction. The objective of this work was to indicate electrical parameters useful for the delimitation of management zones connected with soil compaction. For this purpose, the measurement of apparent soil electrical conductivity and magnetic susceptibility was conducted at two depths: 0.5 and 1 m. Soil compaction was measured for a soil layer at 0–0.5 m. Relationships between electrical soil parameters and soil compaction were modelled with the use of two types of neural networks—multilayer perceptron (MLP) and radial basis function (RBF). Better prediction quality was observed for RBF models. It can be stated that in the mathematical model, the apparent soil electrical conductivity affects soil compaction significantly more than magnetic susceptibility. However, magnetic susceptibility gives additional information about soil properties, and therefore, both electrical parameters should be used simultaneously for the delimitation of management zones.


Agronomy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 646
Author(s):  
Bini Darwin ◽  
Pamela Dharmaraj ◽  
Shajin Prince ◽  
Daniela Elena Popescu ◽  
Duraisamy Jude Hemanth

Precision agriculture is a crucial way to achieve greater yields by utilizing the natural deposits in a diverse environment. The yield of a crop may vary from year to year depending on the variations in climate, soil parameters and fertilizers used. Automation in the agricultural industry moderates the usage of resources and can increase the quality of food in the post-pandemic world. Agricultural robots have been developed for crop seeding, monitoring, weed control, pest management and harvesting. Physical counting of fruitlets, flowers or fruits at various phases of growth is labour intensive as well as an expensive procedure for crop yield estimation. Remote sensing technologies offer accuracy and reliability in crop yield prediction and estimation. The automation in image analysis with computer vision and deep learning models provides precise field and yield maps. In this review, it has been observed that the application of deep learning techniques has provided a better accuracy for smart farming. The crops taken for the study are fruits such as grapes, apples, citrus, tomatoes and vegetables such as sugarcane, corn, soybean, cucumber, maize, wheat. The research works which are carried out in this research paper are available as products for applications such as robot harvesting, weed detection and pest infestation. The methods which made use of conventional deep learning techniques have provided an average accuracy of 92.51%. This paper elucidates the diverse automation approaches for crop yield detection techniques with virtual analysis and classifier approaches. Technical hitches in the deep learning techniques have progressed with limitations and future investigations are also surveyed. This work highlights the machine vision and deep learning models which need to be explored for improving automated precision farming expressly during this pandemic.


2012 ◽  
Vol 170-173 ◽  
pp. 655-660
Author(s):  
Ya Jun Wu ◽  
Jian Bo Yang

It is difficult to operate on the hydraulic-filled mucky soil foundation which the water content is high, so the vacuum preloading method with no sand cushion is used to deal with the foundation in some areas in China. Although there are still many problems in it’s application, such as, the effective range of the prefabricated vertical drains(PVDs) is small, the surrounding soil is easy to be accumulated and the soil strength increases little. For these problems, a laboratory model test on dredger fills made from the 4th layer of the Shanghai mucky soil by vacuum preloading with no sand cushion is performed. The changes and distributions in the settlement, water contents, permeability, plasticity index and grain composition of the dredger fill are studied in the process of the vacuum preloading. It is found that the water contents and permeability of the soft clay near the PVD (the diameter is about 40 to 50cm) are much lower than the outside, while the content of fine particles, plasticity index and soil strength near the PVD is much higher than the others. The measured data shows that the fine particles gather to a soil column at the center of the PVD under the action of vacuum negative pressure, then the permeability and the grain composition of the soil around the PVD is changed. As a result, soil parameters are not evenly distributed. Finally, some suggestions about how to reduce the non-uniformity are proposed.


Author(s):  
M. Possoch ◽  
S. Bieker ◽  
D. Hoffmeister ◽  
A. Bolten ◽  
J. Schellberg ◽  
...  

Remote sensing of crop biomass is important in regard to precision agriculture, which aims to improve nutrient use efficiency and to develop better stress and disease management. In this study, multi-temporal crop surface models (CSMs) were generated from UAV-based dense imaging in order to derive plant height distribution and to determine forage mass. The low-cost UAV-based RGB imaging was carried out in a grassland experiment at the University of Bonn, Germany, in summer 2015. The test site comprised three consecutive growths including six different nitrogen fertilizer levels and three replicates, in sum 324 plots with a size of 1.5×1.5 m. Each growth consisted of six harvesting dates. RGB-images and biomass samples were taken at twelve dates nearly biweekly within two growths between June and September 2015. Images were taken with a DJI Phantom 2 in combination of a 2D Zenmuse gimbal and a GoPro Hero 3 (black edition). Overlapping images were captured in 13 to 16 m and overview images in approximately 60 m height at 2 frames per second. The RGB vegetation index (RGBVI) was calculated as the normalized difference of the squared green reflectance and the product of blue and red reflectance from the non-calibrated images. The post processing was done with Agisoft PhotoScan Professional (SfM-based) and Esri ArcGIS. 14 ground control points (GCPs) were located in the field, distinguished by 30 cm × 30 cm markers and measured with a RTK-GPS (HiPer Pro Topcon) with 0.01 m horizontal and vertical precision. The errors of the spatial resolution in x-, y-, z-direction were in a scale of 3-4 cm. From each survey, also one distortion corrected image was georeferenced by the same GCPs and used for the RGBVI calculation. The results have been used to analyse and evaluate the relationship between estimated plant height derived with this low-cost UAV-system and forage mass. Results indicate that the plant height seems to be a suitable indicator for forage mass. There is a robust correlation of crop height related with dry matter (R² = 0.6). The RGBVI seems not to be a suitable indicator for forage mass in grassland, although the results provided a medium correlation by combining plant height and RGBVI to dry matter (R² = 0.5).


2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 541-548 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Solar ◽  
Nils Trapp

A procedure for preparing and mounting crystals under inert conditions is demonstrated, using a specialized apparatus (μCHILL) to provide a cold gas stream fed from a liquid nitrogen (LN2) reservoir or an open bath heat exchanger. A second, dry gas stream at room temperature enwraps the cold gas, protecting the sample preparation zone from ambient moisture. The technique is extremely flexible, requiring only a single operator, little practice and almost no preparation time. The device enables operation in a wide temperature range (at least 213 K to room temperature), providing temperature control and very stable conditions with no icing for extended time periods. The flexible, modular and low-cost design is based on three-dimensional-printed parts and readily available standard components, potentially making the device available to a wide range of users and applications not limited to single-crystal studies.


Author(s):  
James M. McKinion

Precision agriculture has been made possible by the confluence of several technologies: geographic positioning systems, geographic information systems, image analysis software, low-cost microcomputerbased variable rate controller/recorders, and precision tractor guidance systems. While these technologies have made precision agriculture possible, there are still major obstacles which must be overcome to make this new technology accepted and usable. Most growers will not do image processing and development of prescription maps themselves but will rely upon commercial sources. There still remains the challenge of storage and retrieval of multi-megabytes of data files for each field, and this problem will only continue to grow year by year. This chapter will discuss the various wireless technologies which are currently being used on three proof-of-concept farms or areas in Mississippi, the various data/ information intensive precision agriculture applications which use wireless local area networking and Internet access, and the next generation technologies which can immensely propel precision agriculture to widespread use in all of agriculture.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donatus Bapentire Angnuureng ◽  
Philip-Neri Jayson-Quashigah ◽  
Rafael Almar ◽  
Thomas Christian Stieglitz ◽  
Edward Jamal Anthony ◽  
...  

Video camera systems have been used over nearly three decades to monitor coastal dynamics. They facilitate a high-frequency analysis of spatiotemporal shoreline mobility. Video camera usage to measure beach intertidal profile evolution has not been standardized globally and the capacity to obtain accurate results requires authentication using various techniques. Applications are mostly site specific due to differences in installation. The present study examines the accuracy of intertidal topographic data derived from a video camera system compared to data acquired with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV, or drone) surveys of a reflective beach. Using one year of 15-min video data and one year of monthly UAV observations, the intertidal profile shows a good agreement. Underestimations of intertidal profile elevations by the camera-based method are possibly linked to the camera view angle, rectification and gaps in data. The resolution of the video-derived intertidal topographic profiles confirmed, however, the suitability of the method in providing beach mobility surveys matching those required for a quantitative analysis of nearshore changes. Beach slopes were found to vary between 0.1 and 0.7, with a steep slope in May to July 2018 and a gentle slope in December 2018. Large but short-scale beach variations occurred between August 2018 and October 2018 and corresponded to relatively high wave events. In one year, this dynamic beach lost 7 m. At this rate, and as also observed at other beaches nearby, important coastal facilities and infrastructure will be prone to erosion. The data suggest that a low-cost shore-based camera, particularly when used in a network along the coast, can produce profile data for effective coastal management in West Africa and elsewhere.


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