Journal
SENSORS
Volume 21, Issue 15, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/s21155110
Keywords
soil water content; sensor networks; distributed sensing; IoT measurements; Precision Agriculture; moisture sensor; wireless communication; LoRa; LoRaWAN (TM)
Funding
- DEPARTMENT OF ENGINEERING OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PERUGIA, Italy [2018-RICBA18-PP, 2019RICBA19-PP, 2020-RICBA20-PP]
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A low power wireless sensor network based on LoRaWAN protocol was designed for IoT low-cost Precision Agriculture applications, with emphasis on greenhouse sensing and actuation. Using commercial components and free or open-source software libraries, the system demonstrated feasibility of modular design with cheap off-the-shelf components. The reliability of the system was proven in experiments with two natural soils, showcasing good agreement with reference sensors for temperature and innovative adjustment methods for the low-cost VWC sensor.
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.
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