Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, via Università 100, 80055 Portici (NA), Italy.
R&D Department, TopView srl, San Nicola La Strada, 81020 Caserta, Italy.
Sensors (Basel). 2020 Mar 12;20(6):1589. doi: 10.3390/s20061589.
The use of wireless technologies in the field of agriculture, or so-called smart or precision agriculture, is considered as one of the main efforts applied nowadays to multiply the food production on earth. However, wireless sensor network (WSN) technology is still at its early development stage and its application in agriculture and food industry is still rare due to the lack of farmers' awareness and outreach about the matter. This paper presents a new agro-sensor named AgriLogger with an aim to collect, store for long periods and transmit agrometeorological data represented by temperature and relative humidity in remote areas hard to reach and not served by telecommunication networks. The sensor exhibits long battery life, in the order of 10 years, thanks to low consumption technologies and to hardware sleep/wake up approach. It can be remotely placed on preselected sites through a customized drone. This latter, equipped with a dedicated payload, can then return on the sites where sensors have been placed, and, while hovering, wakes up the single devices and uploads their collected data through local wireless network. Field tests have demonstrated that the sensor, after being placed manually in two different positions, inside and outside a vineyard canopy, is able to collect and store successfully agrometeorological data like temperature and relative humidity. Moreover, the use of a drone potentially allows the collection of data from remote areas and, therefore, is able to provide a periodical monitoring of agro-ecological conditions.
无线技术在农业领域的应用，或者所谓的智能或精准农业，被认为是当今提高地球粮食产量的主要努力之一。然而，由于农民对这一问题缺乏认识和了解，无线传感器网络（WSN）技术仍处于早期发展阶段，其在农业和食品工业中的应用仍然很少。本文提出了一种名为 AgriLogger 的新型农业传感器，旨在收集、长期存储和传输远程地区的农业气象数据，这些地区难以到达且没有电信网络覆盖。该传感器由于采用了低功耗技术和硬件休眠/唤醒方法，具有长达 10 年的电池寿命。它可以通过定制的无人机远程放置在预选的地点。后者配备了专用有效载荷，可以返回传感器放置的地点，在悬停时唤醒单个设备，并通过本地无线网络上传它们收集的数据。现场测试表明，该传感器在葡萄园冠层内外两个不同位置手动放置后，能够成功地收集和存储农业气象数据，如温度和相对湿度。此外，使用无人机可以从远程地区收集数据，因此能够定期监测农业生态条件。
