The aim of the present paper is to review the technical and scientific state of the art of wireless sensor technologies and standards for wireless communications in the Agri-Food sector. These technologies are very promising in several fields such as environmental monitoring, precision agriculture, cold chain control or traceability. The paper focuses on WSN (Wireless Sensor Networks) and RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), presenting the different systems available, recent developments and examples of applications, including ZigBee based WSN and passive, semi-passive and active RFID. Future trends of wireless communications in agriculture and food industry are also discussed.

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A Review of Wireless Sensor Technologies and Applications in Agriculture and Food Industry: State of the Art and Current Trends

https://oa.upm.es/9621/1/LuisRG_2011_COMPAG_The_role_of_RFID_in_agriculture_Applications_limitations_and_challenges.pdf

The role of RFID in agriculture: Applications, limitations and challenges

http://oa.upm.es/9245/1/2010_sensor_for_product_characterization_Ruiz_altisent.pdf

Review: Sensors for product characterization and quality of specialty crops-A review

This paper proposes an agricultural environment monitoring server system for monitoring information concerning an outdoors agricultural production environment utilizing Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technology. The proposed agricultural environment monitoring server system collects environmental and soil information on the outdoors through WSN-based environmental and soil sensors, collects image information through CCTVs, and collects location information using GPS modules. This collected information is converted into a database through the agricultural environment monitoring server consisting of a sensor manager, which manages information collected from the WSN sensors, an image information manager, which manages image information collected from CCTVs, and a GPS manager, which processes location information of the agricultural environment monitoring server system, and provides it to producers. In addition, a solar cell-based power supply is implemented for the server system so that it could be used in agricultural environments with insufficient power infrastructure. This agricultural environment monitoring server system could even monitor the environmental information on the outdoors remotely, and it could be expected that the use of such a system could contribute to increasing crop yields and improving quality in the agricultural field by supporting the decision making of crop producers through analysis of the collected information.

Study on an agricultural environment monitoring server system using Wireless Sensor Networks.

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technology can facilitate advances in productivity, safety and human quality of life through its applications in various industries. In particular, the application of WSN technology to the agricultural area, which is labor-intensive compared to other industries, and in addition is typically lacking in IT technology applications, adds value and can increase the agricultural productivity. This study attempts to establish a ubiquitous agricultural environment and improve the productivity of farms that grow paprika by suggesting a ‘Ubiquitous Paprika Greenhouse Management System’ using WSN technology. The proposed system can collect and monitor information related to the growth environment of crops outside and inside paprika greenhouses by installing WSN sensors and monitoring images captured by CCTV cameras. In addition, the system provides a paprika greenhouse environment control facility for manual and automatic control from a distance, improves the convenience and productivity of users, and facilitates an optimized environment to grow paprika based on the growth environment data acquired by operating the system.

/pdf/a-wireless-sensor-network-based-ubiquitous-paprika-growth-26yf6iby59.pdf

A Wireless Sensor Network-Based Ubiquitous Paprika Growth Management System

A multi-functional remote sensing system (MFRSS) integrating Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology with remote spectral imaging and environmental sensing was developed to enhance seedling production and management in greenhouse. Consisted of a management traceability system (also known as management resume) and an environment traceability system (also known as environment resume), a traceable production management system is highly desirable for automated operations in greenhouse. This study is the first application of RFID to an automatic greenhouse seedling production system. The advantages of the MFRSS system are twofold: First, the production management information can be made traceable by establishing passive RFID on the multi-functional remote sensing system during variable boom cruising in the greenhouse. The spectral images were acquired using a color camera and a monochrome camera with a 780 nm optical filter, with the exposure time and signal gain controlled through an IEEE-1394 interface. Secondly, an automatic exposure algorithm eliminating interferences caused by sunlight variation was developed using Matlab 6.5 and LabVIEW 7.1. The tray position data were transferred to the look up table and delivered to the water management module through a DataSocket server and wireless network. The environment-sensing sub-system, including temperature, relative humidity, and photo-quantum measurements, was developed with a PCI-6023 interface to analyze their spatial distribution in the greenhouse. Not only does the mechanism established in the present study provide a basis for developing an automatic seedling production system, the environmental factors and facility status captured by the RFID-integrated MFRSS also enable a traceable seedling production management database, which is a crucial constituent for practical applications.

Kuang Wen Hsieh

Papers

RFID-integrated Multi-Functional Remote Sensing System for Seedling Production Management