| Wireless Sensor Solutions Demystify Precision Agriculture | | Print | |
| Written by Akiba | |
| Friday, 19 September 2008 | |
|
[Akiba] The killer app for wireless sensor networks
is...viticulture?...[/Akiba]
"As drought conditions worsen in areas such as California and
Australia, vendors can barely keep up with the demand," according
to Mareca Hatler, ON World's director of research. Smart
irrigation systems can save 30% of a farm's water bill while
increasing production yields by 20%.
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Comments (8)
  written by Akiba, September 20, 2008
Wow...that's awesome. I used to be interested in hydroponics (for growing vegetables, of course) so that's when I learned about the different techniques for horticulture. That would be great if my stack could help vintners grow higher quality wine. I might even be able to trade some consulting work for a case of wine in the future...
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 written by netdrag, September 21, 2008
if you are interested, we are currently starting a new researchproject in crop technology(also but not only vini/viticulture for third world nations with wsn. Our current plan was to realize the project with a atmel board(atmega1281 and at86rf230) and tinyos(Because tinyos runs on this cheap(50 Euro) platform, it is open and I did my researchproject at the university with tinyos).
If you are interested to share some ideas, let me know(Post here, send me a mail, or search my nickname at skype). maybe I can also organize some case of wine(but don't know hot to send it to you from italy ;-)) Ciao netdrag report abuse
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written by Akiba, September 21, 2008
I was just joking about the wine. Your project sounds very interesting. Unfortunately, I'm not well versed in TinyOS and finishing the Zigbee stack is going to keep me busy for quite a while.
However I'd eventually like to do put something together to help improve the efficiency of the Japanese rice farmers. Maybe they can pay me in bags of rice...ha ha ha... report abuse
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written by netdrag, September 22, 2008
Yeah, I know you were just joking. TinyOS is nice, but not a definitive choice. Contiki looks nicer, but unfortunately I didn't found a cheap, contiki-compatible mote. The project is non-profit, so cheap is a very important attribute of our platform. On the contiki mailinglist I saw some people talking about at86rfm230 implementations, maybe we can wait until some effort is done...
Zigbee don't seems to be a choice for us because of the always on routers... report abuse
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written by Akiba, September 22, 2008
I'm planning to build some hardware soon and I'd like to do one board that is focused on Contiki. Talk to me then, because I may be able to donate a few boards to your project. Until then, the AT86RF231 is a nice radio to use as well, however most people use the TmoteSky and the CC2420 for Contiki. You should take care about the AT86RF230 since it doesnt come with an encryption engine and external control signals for something like an LNA and RF Power Amp.
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written by netdrag, September 22, 2008
... really nice. I noticed the things about the at86rf230 yesterday. Nice radio, but no aes and currently only tinyos support, no contiki. but on tinyos there is only one mac implementation. For the CC2420 there are B-Mac, X-Mac, scp-wustl, pure-tdma and ss-tdma. I think Mac Layer is one of the most interesting to save power in our application.
The at86rf231 has a aes engine, but there seem to be only implementations with antenna diversity or pcb-antenna and none with external sma connector. And no high power module. CC2420 is very nice, but if I remember right it has only a limited sleep mode und not a really wide range. Very complicated finding the right coiche. report abuse
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written by netdrag, September 22, 2008
Are the TmoteSky still sold? I thought scintilla/moteiv isn't selling them anymore
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Viticulture is definitely the Killer-App for wireless networks.
There are many research projects in this area. The most known are http://www.flow-aid.wur.nl/UK/ and [url=http://crop-technology.com/[Currently]http://crop-technology.com/[Currently down].
WSN let you control irrigation of the plant, using more water right after the florescence gives bigger grapes and using less water in the last few weeks before harvest gives wine with higher quality.
Irrigation, in combination with weather report lets you also save water.
Today, with the use of drip irrigation, less water is wasted, so I think the potential saves with other cultures like apples or pears are higher.
But maybe in the feature you are drinking higher quality wine while working on your stack, because your stack helps produce higher quality wine....
Ciao
netdrag