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

Abstract

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