Swat Model
Swat Model
Swat Model
Abstract
1. Introduction
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Next-Generation Greenhouses for Food Security
Figure 1.
Schematic diagram of wireless communication between greenhouse sensor nodes and cloud storage. Image by
courtesy of Adaptive AgroTech.
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Greenhouse Automation Using Wireless Sensors and IoT Instruments Integrated with Artificial…
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Figure 2.
A LoRaWAN wireless sensor node with an external solar-charged battery and different sensor shields used in
real-time monitoring of greenhouse microclimate parameters. Images by courtesy of Adaptive AgroTech.
Figure 3.
An example of IoT monitoring of air temperature using ADP-AgroTech 868Mhz LoRa sensor located inside a
metal heat control chamber that was isolated in a concrete basement for connectivity test. The gateway receiver
was located inside another building, approximately 50 m away from the transmitter. Data were collected every
5 seconds.
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Next-Generation Greenhouses for Food Security
A sensor probe refers to any instrument or device that measures some physical
or chemical characteristics of the environment and sends the results as an electrical
Figure 4.
Major components of an IoT-based data acquisition and monitoring system for greenhouse environment [2].
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signal to be received and interpreted by the main automation computer for decision
making and control purposes. For example, a pH sensor that continuously measures
the pH of the irrigation water will trigger an alarm and maintain optimum pH level
if it is too high or too low, eliminating the need for a grower to manually run pH
tests and pH control. Some of the essential parameters to measure in a greenhouse
environment include microclimate (i.e., air temperature, relative humidity, and
vapor pressure deficit), soil moisture, soil temperature, and light level (or solar
radiation) [6, 8–10]. Measurements from these sensors can indicate the presence of
mildew disease or condensation. Figure 5 shows some of the most widely used sen-
sors in greenhouse production. For example, concerning the microclimate param-
eters, the high precision BlueDot BME280 + TSL2591 is a tiny integrated digital and
cost-efficient sensor with great accuracy and range that provides a flexible solution.
The BME280 is a combined digital humidity, pressure, and temperature sensor
based on proven sensing principles. This sensor module is housed in an extremely
compact metal-lid LGA package with a footprint of only 2.5 × 2.5 mm2 with a height
of 0.93 mm. Its small dimensions and its low power consumption allow the imple-
mentation in battery-driven sensor nodes inside greenhouses and can achieve high
performance and accurate measurement. The BME280 also provides an extremely
fast response time for fast context awareness applications and high overall accuracy
over a wide temperature range. The pressure sensor is an absolute barometric
pressure sensor with extremely high accuracy and resolution and drastically low
noise. The integrated temperature sensor has been optimized for low noise and high
resolution. Its output is used for temperature compensation of the pressure and
humidity sensors and can also be used for estimation of the ambient temperature.
Most soil moisture sensors such as 10HS measures the dielectric constant of
the soil using capacitance technology in order to find its volumetric water content
(VWC), for scientific research and greenhouse applications. These sensors usually
use 70 MHz frequency, which minimizes salinity and textural effects, providing
high-resolution measurements that allow daily or hourly tracking of soil moisture
content by sending analog voltage that is proportional to water content. These
sensors have low sensitivity to salt and temperature, and are low power consump-
tion. They can be connected directly or via interfaces to IoT boards for real-time
Figure 5.
Typical sensor probes used for measuring environmental variables in greenhouse crop production.
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Next-Generation Greenhouses for Food Security
monitoring. Light level sensor, also known as Light Dependent Resistor (LDR)
is an active sensor that is made of high accuracy, fast response, high resistance
semiconductor which is sensitive to light. It decreases resistance with respect to
receiving luminosity (light) on the component’s sensitive surface. The resistance
of a photo-resistor decreases with increasing incident light intensity (it exhibits
photoconductivity). In the dark, a photo-resistor can have a resistance as high as
several megaohms (MΩ), while in the light, a photo-resistor can have a resistance
as low as a few hundred ohms. It should be noted that the raw output data from this
sensor need to be calibrated for specific interpretation. The SQ-110 sensor, specifi-
cally calibrated for the detection of solar radiation, provides at its output a voltage
proportional to the intensity of the light in the visible range of the spectrum, a
key parameter in photosynthesis processes. The waterproof DS18b20 is a robust
and corrosion-free sensor that can be used for measuring soil temperature. This
sensor comes with different cable lengths of 1.8 and 3 m and provides 9-bit Celsius
temperature measurements. The DS18B20 communicates over a 1-Wire bus that by
definition requires only one data line (and ground) for communication with the
connectivity board. Another temperature sensor, Pt − 1000, works based on the
resistance that varies between approximately 920 Ω and 1200 Ω in the range consid-
ered useful in greenhouse applications (−20 ~ 50°C approximately), which results
in too low variations of voltage at significant changes of temperature for the resolu-
tion of the analog-to-digital converter. Most soil moisture sensors are in fact analog
sensors (non-rust capacitive hygrometer) that determine volumetric water content
(VWC) by measuring the dielectric constant of the media using capacitance/
frequency domain technology. An example is the analog sensor from Sun3Drucker
that can be inserted directly into the soil to send moisture feedback data in real-
time using capacitive sensing. A cable length of 1.5 m has been tested and found
to be noise-free for these sensors. The soil moisture sensor probe is corrosion-free
(no electrolysis on the electrodes) since it is using capacitive measuring method,
and therefore is free of electrolysis on the electrodes. Another soil moisture sensor,
the ECHO EC-5, determines volumetric water content (VWC) by measuring the
dielectric constant of the media using capacitance/frequency domain technology.
The EC-5 probe 70 MHz frequency minimizes salinity and textural effects, making
this sensor accurate in almost any soil or soilless media. Factory calibrations are
included for mineral soils, potting soils, Rockwool, and perlite.
Other than the mentioned sensors, some specific applications in greenhouse
production and research may require a custom-design sensor probe. For example,
in a greenhouse with misting or fogging systems, it is necessary to determine the
solution droplet deposition on the plants. Determining leaf wetness as a reference
measurement to avoid condensation inside greenhouse environments in certain
hours is also of interest. In large-scale commercial greenhouse production measur-
ing leaf surface wetness to determine the performance of spraying is required for
chemical depletion. For this purpose, the ADP-AgroTech leaf wetness sensor model
ADP-LWS2020 shown in Figure 6 has been designed with different shapes to mimic
the actual leaf shape, and to convert the moisture on the leaf surface into an analog
signal using capacitance change. This sensor has been optimized to eliminate noise
and generate high-resolution output under extreme greenhouse conditions. The
performance of this sensor has been tested under high temperature and humidity
in different tropical lowlands of Malaysia, and has been found to be stable and
resistant under direct solar radiation. It can be seen from Figure 6 that the surface
of this sensor is composed of several rows of dielectric constant capacitor that has
equal spacing and are connected to an electronic interface board for producing an
analog signal. The ADP-LWS2020 can mimic the wetness state of a real leaf and
detects the presence of surface moisture and calculates the duration of wetness.
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Greenhouse Automation Using Wireless Sensors and IoT Instruments Integrated with Artificial…
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Figure 6.
ADP-AgroTech leaf wetness sensor (model ADP-LWS2020) with different leaf shapes based on capacitive
method for determining leaf surface moisture and greenhouse condensation. Images by courtesy of Adaptive
AgroTech
Figure 7.
Sample prototype of WiFi and LoRa connectivity boards with onboard storage for real-time monitoring and
IoT control of greenhouse based on ESP32 and Atmega328P microcontroller. Images by courtesy of Adaptive
AgroTech.
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Next-Generation Greenhouses for Food Security
these transmitter boards and receiver (gateway) is realized through Lora technology
(433 MHz (Asia), 868 MHz (Europe) and 915 MHz (Australia and North America))
which covers 2 ~ 10 km distance in rural areas and is extendable to 100 km with
repeaters. By default these boards have been programmed to read and record mea-
surements every 10 seconds which can be adjusted according to the growers’ needs.
Data are stored on an onboard mini SD card or are transferred to an open-source
secure cloud database via WiFi connection. Data can be viewed online at http://iot.
adaptiveagrotech.com/ or by installing Adaptive AgroTech smartphone app.
The wireless sensor and controller boards as well as other electronic components
and modules are housed in sealed waterproof ABS enclosures that are rated as IP-66
in order to withstand harsh environmental conditions such as sunlight, dust, mois-
ture, high humidity, insects, and sudden changes in temperature. Figure 8 shows
a hybrid data acquisition system with modular components including the main
connectivity board, sensor probes, connector cables, external solar-charged battery,
and a solar panel. These components are interchangeable and can be connected to
the mainboard using standard aviation plug GX16 male and female metal sockets.
For greenhouse application, it is very important that all enclosures are high-quality
ABS flame retardant material, corrosion resistance, anti-UV and anti-aging,
antistatic, good sealing performance, long life, and suitable for all types of environ-
ments. The performance of these components and the metal sockets has been tested
for over 12 months in different open-field and closed-field agriculture production.
The external battery shown in Figure 8 is 5.0 V, 2400mAh that can be continuously
charged with a 5 V, 500mAh solar panel, and can last over two years without any
maintenance at 60 readings per hour when the mainboard is operating in deep-sleep
mode. The voltage of the battery can be adjusted and increased to 7.7 V or reduced
to 3.8 V for other applications. It is recommended that those sensor probes that are
not intended to be used during the data collection should not be connected to the
boards. Since several sensors share the same power line, a sensor that is not going
to be used and still connected to the board will entail an additional consumption,
resulting in a shorter life of the battery. Figure 8 also shows that the microclimate
sensor has been placed in a protective shell to withstand direct sunlight and mois-
ture, and to stabilize the air temperature and relative humidity for more accurate
measurement and preventing errors. Other types of shells for microclimate sensors
can be used for greenhouse depending on the application. These shells are water-
proof and will keep water from seeping into the body of the sensor and damaging it,
while at the same time airflow can pass through.
Figure 8.
A hybrid data acquisition system with modular solar charged external battery, plug-and-sense probes, 32GB
onboard, and multiple communication interfaces for data transfer including serial port, WiFi, and LoRa
868Mhz. Image by courtesy of Adaptive AgroTech.
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XBee-PRO 802.15.4 2.4 GHz 18 dBm -100 dBm 1600 m FCC, IC,
802.15.4 ANATEL,
RCM
WiFi WiFi 2.4 GHz 17 dBm −94 dBm 500 m CE, FCC, IC,
(HTTP(S), ANATEL,
FTP, TCP, RCM
UDP)
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Table 1.
Standard wireless communications used in agricultural applications.
Figure 9.
A prototype IoT automation system used in real-time monitoring and control of greenhouse environments, (a) a
controller board with two WiFi modules, onboard computer, 8-channel relays, and 2 stepper motor drivers,
(b) a wireless LoRa sensor and Datalogger with modular components, (c) a custom-built sensor platform.
Figure 10.
A general architecture of a WSN based monitoring of greenhouse environment.
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the farm collect data and transmit to a gateway device that has access to the internet
using WiFi protocol, or convert the data packet to JSON format before sending the
data to the backend layer using HTTPS protocol, (ii) client, in which each wireless
node sends requests to the backend and receive responses in JSON format via HTTP
protocol. The backend layer consists of a middle layer between the backend server
and the farm layer. A middle device or server in the backend layer that uses WiFi and
REST API providers first receive data from the farm layer and then transfer the pack-
ets to the backend layer. The programming language used in the backend server is C#
and the database is an SQL server. Received data are pre-processed, analyzed, and
then categorized using queries, crop models, and AI algorithms, and are then saved
in the database using controllers that have been implemented in the C# frameworks.
The queries can run on the database to receive responses in the defined format. The
communication between the backend server and SQL server is established using
HTTP protocol and JSON format. The wrapper layer includes the cloud storage in
which processed data from the backend are sent to IoT serve and are saved. This gives
the user the advantage of having a secure backup of the collected data. The provider
receives data from the backend layer and for further real-time assessment of the field
condition. The input of this layer is the transferred data which are collected every 5
or 10 minutes by the field layer (sensor nodes in the farm). The frontend layer, also
called the presentation layer, provides data visualization by means of real-time plots,
control buttons, and indicators on, mobile apps, webpages, or other platforms. The
frontend layer can have access to the collected data via the backend layer using send-
and-request protocols, and receive responses from the wrapper layer. The presented
wireless IoT framework was tested in various greenhouse environments and showed
that while the sensor measurement was 100%, the network mean packet reliability
was between 95 and 100% due to the packet losses. This failure can be related to the
high-density plants canopy which can significantly reduce the signal strength of the
sensor nodes. Graphical results of experimenting with the wireless sensor and IoT
controllers are provided in Figures 11 and 12.
2.4 Case study: verifying performance of a crop model with a WiFi sensor node
In order to improve greenhouse yield and profits, collected data from multiple
wireless sensors that are deployed in different parts of the greenhouse should be used
with knowledge-based software, and crop growth models. These models are often sen-
sitive to boundary inputs and may cause inaccurate simulation results. The objective of
this case study was to use a WiFi sensor node for collecting air temperature and light
data in order to evaluate parameter robustness of the reduced state-variable TOMGRO
model [14] for yield estimation of tomato in a random greenhouse. The hypothesis
was to test whether the model parameters are robust enough to translate an adverse
greenhouse environment (with air temperature so high to prevent any crop growth
development) to realistic biomass and yield. For this purpose, TOMGRO was first
implemented in Matlab Simulink in order to create a flexible platform for easier inter-
facing with the inputs and outputs. The final Simulink block was validated with the
Lakecity datasets of [14]. To produce boundary data, an experiment was carried out in
an empty glass-panels covered greenhouse under tropical lowlands climate conditions
by turning off all ventilation and cooling systems for creating an adverse microclimate
scenario with zero yield expectation. The glasshouse was located at the campus of
Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (Latitude: 2°59′24.7",
Longitude: 101°41’56.1”). Hourly measurements of air temperature and solar radiation
were continuously collected for 254 days using a WiFi sensor node similar to the one
shown in Figure 13. Plots of raw air temperature and solar radiation data from the
glasshouse experiment are also shown in Figure 13 followed by a detailed outlook of
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Figure 11.
Sample of air temperature data collected every 60 seconds using Adaptive AgroTech LoRaWAN sensor located
inside a greenhouse storage room.
Figure 12.
Lab scale implementation of IoT monitoring and control of light level using LoRa 868 Mhz transceivers.
air temperature plots that shows daily maximum, averaged, and minimum values. It
can be seen that air temperature readings inside the glasshouse have reached to 68°C
in some specific hours, which not only prevents tomato growth, but can also have
serious negative impacts on the solar-charged battery of the WiFi sensor node. In
addition, daily averaged air temperature values between hours of 12:00 and 18:00 are
in the range of 30 to 50°C. The average, minimum and maximum values during the
entire experiment were equal to 34.5, 22.5, and 68.3°C, corresponding to a simulated
growth response of zero between hours of 12:00 and 18:00. Results of simulation with
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Figure 13.
Performance of IoT monitoring with WiFi sensor node in an empty glasshouse without climate control for
testing the performance of the connectivity board and battery modules under adversely hot and humid
environment.
TOMGRO model showed that the estimated total above-ground dry weight (WT),
total fruit dry weight (WF), and mature fruit dry weight (WM) were equal to 0.576,
0.085 and 0.072 kg/m2 respectively. This study tested the claimed conclusion of [14]
that states “it is possible to use the same reduced model with parameters estimated
at one location to simulate leaf area and above-ground weight of tomato growing in
greenhouse conditions in other locations” using boundary data that were continu-
ously collected by a WiFi sensor node: Based on the consistency of the low estimated
fruit yield with the simulated growth responses, the hypothesis that the simplified
TOMGRO model with its initial parameters is not capable of estimating tomato yield
for a random greenhouse in a different geographical location was rejected. It can be
concluded that long-term historical data collected by IoT sensor nodes can be used
to improve the performance of crop models, as well as offering new insights to add
artificial intelligence algorithms to the automation system.
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means that the AI algorithm must coexist with all other pieces of the automation
system fluidly, including multiple sensors, physical systems that control devices
and actuators. The main justification for designing AI-based automation systems
in greenhouse environments such as those that operate with fuzzy logic or neural
network algorithms is to shift toward a robust, predictive, and adaptive control
command strategies that reduce production costs and improve yield. Artificial
intelligence is a computer system that is programmed to present intelligent behavior
by perceiving the environment, making decisions, and taking action. AI can con-
tribute to sustainable greenhouse production in different ways such as reducing the
electrical energy consumption of the climate control systems, or reducing water
and chemical demands for fertigation system. For example, AI algorithms can be
implemented for updating microclimate set-points (also known as reference values)
depending on a specific crop, growth stages, light conditions, and external variables.
These set-points are conventionally created manually by expert growers, or by means
of knowledge-based decision support systems such as adaptive management [18] or
dynamic assessment [19]. Set-points [6] are the core inputs of the microclimate con-
trol system and therefore must be calculated precisely, otherwise production failure
and crop loss can occur in a few hours. Results of an experiment with three different
tropical greenhouses in the lowlands of Malaysia that are shown in Figure 14 reveal
that without proper climate control algorithms, air temperature can reach 37°C or
60°C depending on the structural design and external condition [20, 21].
To overcome these challenges, a conventional greenhouse climate controller
that triggers ventilation, misting, or spraying in order to reduce air temperature
was developed and tested (Figure 15). During cold seasons, the controller was
interfaced with time-based or sensor-based actuators for triggering of the heat-
ing system. These approached however are not efficient for high-tech large-scale
greenhouses. An integrated climate control system should not only benefit from
the wireless and IoT automation technology, but also from the innovative cooling
and heating methods that operates based on AI algorithms. In this scheme, col-
lected data from multiple wireless sensors that are deployed in different parts of the
greenhouse are used to train machine learning algorithms that have been designed
based on knowledge-based systems and mathematical crop growth models. The
output commands and decision messages from this process are then used to control
Figure 14.
Wireless monitoring of microclimate inside three tropical greenhouses with different covering materials (A:
net-screen, B: polyethylene film, C: Polycarbonate panels) without proper climate control algorithms showing
that air temperature are significantly far from optimal set-points and can exceed 37 °C or 60 °C depending on
the structural design and outside condition.
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Next-Generation Greenhouses for Food Security
Figure 15.
Lab-scale implementation of IoT monitoring and control of air temperature, (left): 4 PID plus 2 manual-
controlled fans, and (right): 4 PID plus 2 AI-controlled fans.
specific elements within the crop growth microenvironment while at the same time
they are optimized to reduce energy, chemicals, and water demands. An example
of this approach was implemented on a lab-scale greenhouse shown in Figure 15
by performing PID speed control on 4 ventilation fans, and manual speed control
on the other two fans (referred to as AI fans) for obtaining training dataset. The
presented platform allowed experimenting with various methods, including fuzzy-
logic self-tuning PID controller and machine learning to adjust the speed of the
two AI fans. The air temperature responses were then monitored in real-time using
WiFi sensor nodes and are shown by the two plots in Figure 15. A simple fuzzy logic
control algorithm was also implemented on a research tropical greenhouse shown
in Figure 16 to demonstrate the difference between air temperature response in a
timer-based control and intelligent control. A summary of the fuzzy logic rules is
presented in Tables 2 and 3.
Another example of AI application in greenhouses is the prediction of micro-
climate parameters as demonstrated in Figure 17. This prediction can be used for
advanced microclimate control systems such as adaptive or predictive control, energy
demand calculation, or for applications such as disease prevention, decision support
systems, and cost–benefit analysis. It should be noted that building a successful AI
algorithm for this purpose requires navigating the entire AI workflow and focusing
on more than just one training data set and model. In this example, several datasets
of the past 10 days from different tropical greenhouses were used to predict the 11th
day data. Extensive simulations with different numbers of days were used to find out
Figure 16.
A comparison between timer-based and fuzzy-logic based control of air temperature in an experimental
greenhouse under lowland climate conditions of Malaysia.
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3 25 30 31 −5 −6 −1 e= Cool Big
Negative,
Δe =
Negative
4 25 25 25 0 0 0 e = Zero, Ideal
Δe = Zero
5 25 25 24 0 +1 +1 e = Zero, Warm
Δe = Normal
Positive
6 25 25 26 0 −1 −1 e = Zero, Cool
Δe = Normal
Negative
7 25 20 20 +5 +5 0 e= Warm
Positive, Big
Δe = Zero
8 25 20 19 +5 +6 +1 e= Warm
Positive, Very Big
Δe =
Positive
9 25 20 21 +5 +4 −1 e= Warm
Positive, Normal
Δe =
Negative
Table 2.
Example of a simple fuzzy logic control algorithm implemented on a research tropical greenhouse,: Ts = Tsetpoint,
Tin (t) = Tinside at Time (t), Tin (t + 1) = Tinside at Time (t + 1), et = error at Time (t) = Ts- Tin (t), et + 1 = error at Time
(t + 1) = Ts- Tin (t + 1), Δe = change of error = e (t + 1) - e (t).
Positive Big STOP Warm Warm Normal Warm Big Warm Big
Cooling Normal
Table 3.
The fuzzy logic rule table.
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Next-Generation Greenhouses for Food Security
Figure 17.
Preliminary results of predicting the next 24 hours of air temperature, relative humidity, and vapor pressure
deficit in a naturally ventilated tropical greenhouse using feed-forward neural network and a 10-days dataset.
Figure 18.
IoT realization of the adaptive management framework using Simulink blocks, LoRa 868Mhz sensor node, and
raspberry Pi embedded board for evaluation and adjusting greenhouse microclimate.
that a dataset that includes at least the past 10 days’ measurement is required for the
AI algorithm to effectively predict the microclimate of the next day. In this example,
data preparation was more than having a lot of data or even pre-processing all of the
data to be consistent. This process involved adding human insight to the selection of
the training data, as well as considering augmenting data sets with synthetic data and
more samples, and providing clean labeled data. In this regard, choosing the right AI
algorithm, such as machine learning, deep learning, or a combination, and identify-
ing the optimal set of parameters will lead to the most robust and accurate prediction
model. As mentioned before, simulation techniques are extensively used to verify
the performance of AI algorithms in every situation and scenario, such as different
climate conditions, greenhouse structural design, covering materials, the crop that
is being cultivated, and the growth stage. An example of simulation is the adaptive
management framework [18] that allows growers to verify edge cases and test and
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4. Conclusion
This chapter provided an overview of the application of IoT sensors and control-
lers that can be integrated with crop models and artificial intelligence algorithms
for sustainable greenhouse production. Several affordable yet robust wireless
sensor nodes developed by Adaptive AgroTech that benefit from WiFi and LoRa
communication were presented with sample results from lab-scale and commercial-
scale greenhouses. The introduced wireless transceivers were shown to be flexible
and modular, which makes possible easy installation anywhere in the greenhouse
environments to overcome cable wiring difficulties for the sensors and the LAN
connection. Additionally, the flexibility in data sharing can be upgraded on the
cloud system with user experience. The generated commands and decisions that
are received by the IoT automation board from the cloud-based streaming system
are used to control specific elements within the crop growth microenvironment
while at the same time they can be optimized by the onboard computer to reduce
energy, chemicals, and water demands. It can be concluded that developing a robust
and affordable IoT automation system for greenhouse condition should take into
account the correct selection and combination of the battery and charging units,
the electronic housing box, connectors and plugs, data wire and cables, wireless
antenna, and the modularity and compatibility of the package components. Results
of experiments inside different greenhouses with high-density plants showed
that the major disadvantage of wireless sensor nodes in real-time monitoring is
the repeated loss of connection even in mesh applications. The water in the high
amount of biomass of the plants damps the radio signals and avoids communication
distances over long ranges. This can be solved by using different techniques (that
sometimes involve a huge amount of effort), including antennas with cable for
higher positions, higher mesh density, multiple gateway nodes, and higher output
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power. In general, it is a good practice to store all measurement data using devices
that benefits from local memory. Therefore, the asynchronous readout is enabled
for the user, and the data is not missed which an efficient practice for IoT is moni-
toring in large-scale commercial berry production. It is expected that this process
embraces the uncertainties, especially in the remote areas, and consequently
contributes to a higher yield with lesser inputs.
Acknowledgements
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Author details
© 2021 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms
of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.
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References
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