State-of-the-Art Internet of Things in Protected Agriculture

The Internet of Things (IoT) has tremendous success in health care, smart city, industrial production and so on. Protected agriculture is one of the fields which has broad application prospects of IoT. Protected agriculture is a mode of highly efficient development of modern agriculture that uses artificial techniques to change climatic factors such as temperature, to create environmental conditions suitable for the growth of animals and plants. This review aims to gain insight into the state-of-the-art of IoT applications in protected agriculture and to identify the system structure and key technologies. Therefore, we completed a systematic literature review of IoT research and deployments in protected agriculture over the past 10 years and evaluated the contributions made by different academicians and organizations. Selected references were clustered into three application domains corresponding to plant management, animal farming and food/agricultural product supply traceability. Furthermore, we discussed the challenges along with future research prospects, to help new researchers of this domain understand the current research progress of IoT in protected agriculture and to propose more novel and innovative ideas in the future

Novel Time-Resolved Fluorescence Immunochromatography Paper-Based Sensor with Signal Amplification Strategy for Detection of Deoxynivalenol

Immunoassay has the advantages of high sensitivity, high specificity, and simple operation, and has been widely used in the detection of mycotoxins. For several years, time-resolved fluorescence immunochromatography (TRFIA) paper-based sensors have attracted much attention as a simple and low-cost field detection technology. However, a traditional TRFIA paper-based sensor is based on antibody labeling, which cannot easily meet the current detection requirements. A second antibody labeling method was used to amplify the fluorescence signal and improve the detection sensitivity. Polystyrene fluorescent microspheres were combined with sheep anti-mouse IgG to prepare fluorescent probes (Eu-IgGs). After the probe fully reacted with the antibody (Eu-IgGs-Abs) in the sample cell, it was deployed on the paper-based sensor using chromatography. Eu-IgGs-Abs that were not bound to the target were captured on the T-line, while those that were bound were captured on the C-line. The paper-based sensor reflected the corresponding fluorescence intensity change. Because a single molecule of the deoxynivalenol antibody could bind to multiple Eu-IgGs, this method could amplify the fluorescence signal intensity on the unit antibody and improve the detection sensitivity. The working standard curve of the sensor was established under the optimum working conditions. It showed the lower limit of detection and higher recovery rate when it was applied to actual samples and compared with other methods. This sensor has the advantages of high sensitivity, good accuracy, and good specificity, saving the amount of antibody consumed and being suitable for rapid field detection of deoxynivalenol