296 research outputs found

    Successful Deployment of a Wireless Sensor Network for Precision Agriculture in Malawi

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    This paper demonstrates how an irrigation management system (IMS) can practically be implemented by deploying a wireless sensor network (WSN). Specifically, the paper describes an IMS which was set up in Manja township, city of Blantyre. Deployment of IMS in rural areas of developing countries like Malawi is a challenge as grid power is scarce. For the system to be self-sustained in terms of power, the study used solar photovoltaic and rechargeable batteries to power all electrical devices. The system incorporated a remote monitoring mechanism through a General Packet Radio Service modem to report soil temperature, soil moisture, WSN link performance, and photovoltaic power levels. Irrigation valves were activated to water the field. Preliminary results in this study have revealed a number of engineering weaknesses of deploying such a system. Nevertheless, the paper has highlighted areas of improvement to develop a robust, fully automated, solar-powered, and low-cost IMS to suit the socioeconomic conditions of small scale farmers in developing countries

    Successful Deployment of a Wireless Sensor Network for Precision Agriculture in Malawi

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    This paper demonstrates how an Irrigation Management System (IMS) can practically be implemented by successfully deploying a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). Specifically, the paper describes an IMS which was set up in Manja Township, City of Blantyre based on an advanced irrigation scheduling technique. Since the system had to be self-sustained in terms of power, which is a challenge for deployment in rural areas of developing countries like Malawi where grid power supply is scarce, we used solar Photovoltaic (PV) and rechargeable batteries to power all electrical devices in this system. The system incorporated a remote monitoring mechanism through a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) modem to report soil temperature, soil moisture, WSN link performance and PV power levels. Irrigation valves were activated to water the field. Our preliminary results have revealed engineering weakness of deploying such a system. Nevertheless, the paper shows that it is possible to develop a robust, fully-automated, solar powered, and low cost IMS to suit the socio-economic conditions of small scale farmers in developing countries

    Successful deployment of a Wireless Sensor Network for precision agriculture in Malawi

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    The impact of agricultural activities on water quality: a case for collaborative catchment-scale management using integrated wireless sensor networks

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    The challenge of improving water quality is a growing global concern, typified by the European Commission Water Framework Directive and the United States Clean Water Act. The main drivers of poor water quality are economics, poor water management, agricultural practices and urban development. This paper reviews the extensive role of non-point sources, in particular the outdated agricultural practices, with respect to nutrient and contaminant contributions. Water quality monitoring (WQM) is currently undertaken through a number of data acquisition methods from grab sampling to satellite based remote sensing of water bodies. Based on the surveyed sampling methods and their numerous limitations, it is proposed that wireless sensor networks (WSNs), despite their own limitations, are still very attractive and effective for real-time spatio-temporal data collection for WQM applications. WSNs have been employed for WQM of surface and ground water and catchments, and have been fundamental in advancing the knowledge of contaminants trends through their high resolution observations. However, these applications have yet to explore the implementation and impact of this technology for management and control decisions, to minimize and prevent individual stakeholder’s contributions, in an autonomous and dynamic manner. Here, the potential of WSN-controlled agricultural activities and different environmental compartments for integrated water quality management is presented and limitations of WSN in agriculture and WQM are identified. Finally, a case for collaborative networks at catchment scale is proposed for enabling cooperation among individually networked activities/stakeholders (farming activities, water bodies) for integrated water quality monitoring, control and management

    Security and Privacy for Green IoT-based Agriculture: Review, Blockchain solutions, and Challenges

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    open access articleThis paper presents research challenges on security and privacy issues in the field of green IoT-based agriculture. We start by describing a four-tier green IoT-based agriculture architecture and summarizing the existing surveys that deal with smart agriculture. Then, we provide a classification of threat models against green IoT-based agriculture into five categories, including, attacks against privacy, authentication, confidentiality, availability, and integrity properties. Moreover, we provide a taxonomy and a side-by-side comparison of the state-of-the-art methods toward secure and privacy-preserving technologies for IoT applications and how they will be adapted for green IoT-based agriculture. In addition, we analyze the privacy-oriented blockchain-based solutions as well as consensus algorithms for IoT applications and how they will be adapted for green IoT-based agriculture. Based on the current survey, we highlight open research challenges and discuss possible future research directions in the security and privacy of green IoT-based agriculture

    Design and implementation of an efficient solar powered irrigation management system for drip irrigated maize field

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    Purpose - The thesis investigates effects of automatic variation of the deficit irrigation level with the growth stage of drip irrigated maize on grain yield and crop Water Use Efficiency (WUE). It further examines the impact of water-efficient irrigation controllers on the solar Photovoltaic energy level requirements for water pumping systems. Methodology - A Wireless Sensor and Actuator Network was deployed to monitor field conditions and actuate irrigation valves according to whether the level of moisture was within the set points. A Control Treatment (CT) field was fully irrigated using constant moisture threshold levels, while an Experimental Treatment (ExT) field had the highest level of deficit irrigation at the early and later growth stages. Full irrigation was applied at the middle growth stage. Irrigation depths and grain yields were measured, while WUE and the solar energy required by the water pumping system were calculated. Findings - The findings show that 880 mm and 560 mm of water were applied to CT and ExT fields, respectively. This represents a 36% water saving and a corresponding water pumping energy saving of 36% in the ExT field. The grain yields were 0.752 kg/m2 and 0.812 kg/m2 for CT and ExT fields, respectively. This shows that, despite applying a lower amount of water, the ExT improved the grain yield by 7.4%. Furthermore, the results show an increase in WUE from 0.86 kg/m3 for the CT field to 1.45 kg/m3 for the ExT field, representing a 69% improvement. Research limitations/implications - This study focused on the maize production under Malawi's weather conditions. However, the concept would easily be replicated in other crops and in other parts of the world with two modifications: firstly, sensor calibration must be done on-site; and secondly, the specific crop coefficient pattern must be used to develop the irrigation scheduling strategy.Purpose - The thesis investigates effects of automatic variation of the deficit irrigation level with the growth stage of drip irrigated maize on grain yield and crop Water Use Efficiency (WUE). It further examines the impact of water-efficient irrigation controllers on the solar Photovoltaic energy level requirements for water pumping systems. Methodology - A Wireless Sensor and Actuator Network was deployed to monitor field conditions and actuate irrigation valves according to whether the level of moisture was within the set points. A Control Treatment (CT) field was fully irrigated using constant moisture threshold levels, while an Experimental Treatment (ExT) field had the highest level of deficit irrigation at the early and later growth stages. Full irrigation was applied at the middle growth stage. Irrigation depths and grain yields were measured, while WUE and the solar energy required by the water pumping system were calculated. Findings - The findings show that 880 mm and 560 mm of water were applied to CT and ExT fields, respectively. This represents a 36% water saving and a corresponding water pumping energy saving of 36% in the ExT field. The grain yields were 0.752 kg/m2 and 0.812 kg/m2 for CT and ExT fields, respectively. This shows that, despite applying a lower amount of water, the ExT improved the grain yield by 7.4%. Furthermore, the results show an increase in WUE from 0.86 kg/m3 for the CT field to 1.45 kg/m3 for the ExT field, representing a 69% improvement. Research limitations/implications - This study focused on the maize production under Malawi's weather conditions. However, the concept would easily be replicated in other crops and in other parts of the world with two modifications: firstly, sensor calibration must be done on-site; and secondly, the specific crop coefficient pattern must be used to develop the irrigation scheduling strategy

    Technology-assisted decision support system for efficient water utilization : a real-time testbed for irrigation using wireless sensor networks

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    Scientific organizations and researchers are eager to apply recent technological advancements, such as sensors and actuators, in different application areas, including environmental monitoring, creation of intelligent buildings, and precision agriculture. Technology-assisted irrigation for agriculture is a major research innovation which eases the work of farmers and prevents water wastage. Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are used as sensor nodes that directly interact with the physical environment and provide real-time data that are useful in identifying regions in need, particularly in agricultural fields. This paper presents an efficient methodology that employs WSN as a data collection tool and a decision support system (DSS). The proposed DSS can assist farmers in their manual irrigation procedures or automate irrigation activities. Water-deficient sites in both scenarios are identified by using soil moisture and environmental data sensors. However, the proposed system's accuracy is directly proportional to the accuracy of dynamic data generated by the deployed WSN. A simplified outlier-detection algorithm is thus presented and integrated with the proposed DSS to fine-tune the collected data prior to processing. The complexity of the algorithm is O(1) for dynamic datasets generated by sensor nodes and O(n) for static datasets. Different issues in technology-assisted irrigation management and their solutions are also addressed. © 2013 IEEE

    Remote monitoring of off-grid renewable energy case studies in rural Malawi, Zambia, and Gambia

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    Increased understanding of off-grid renewable energy technology (RET) performance can assist in improving sustainability of such systems. The technologies for remote monitoring of RET deployments in developing countries are promising with various configurations and usages being tested. Recent applications of remote monitoring technologies in Malawi, Gambia, and Zambia are presented along with their respective strengths and weaknesses. The potential for remote monitoring applications to improve sustainability of off-grid RET is explored along with some theoretical directions of the technologies

    Service Provisioning for Lightweight Community Cloud Infrastructures

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    Service provision in low power network environments remains a very difficult task due to the lightweight nature of the devices involved. This paper explores and demonstrates the efficacy of the light weight resource allocation protocol (LRAP) in allocating services in a heterogeneous network environment consisting of primarily low power nodes. We show that with the correct resource brokering approach, services can be provisioned on nodes in a way which does not cripple individual nodes in network, while ensuring that services are distributed to nodes in the network where the lowest impact on overall performance will be made. This strategy provides an effective way of providing services especially in low power environment
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