IoT in Precision Agriculture Applications Using Wireless Moisture Sensor Network

Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of sensors and connectivity to enable application like agriculture optimum irrigation. Wireless sensor network (WSN) and Wireless Moisture Sensor Network (WMSN) are components of IoT. One of the important processes in agriculture is irrigation. Improper irrigation will result in waste of water. Proper irrigation system could be achieved by using WSN technology. Monitoring and control applications have been tremendously improved by using WSN technology. It enabled efficient communication with many sensors. WMSN is a WSN with moisture sensors. In this study, Precision Agriculture (PA) used WMSN to enable efficient irrigation. In this paper, we describe about IoT and WMSN in agriculture applications particularly in greenhouse environment. This paper explained and proved the efficiency of feedback control method in greenhouse crop irrigation. A test was conducted to see the different these two methods. The methods are irrigation by schedule or feedback based irrigation. Irrigation by schedule is to supply water to the plant at specific time periods. Feedback based irrigation is to irrigate plant when the moisture or level of media wetness reached predefined value. The test shows that there is an average savings of 1,500 ml per day per tree.