Agricultural Internet of Things (Ag-IoT)
as a part of the IEEE 7th World Forum on Internet of Things (WF-IoT) 2021.
“Excited to be part of the discussion when leveraging IoT for agriculture and what are the challenges and rewards”
Tanja Lewit
Title: What can plants tell us?
Abstract: There is a science to their existence. It starts with the basics: Sun for photosynthesis, Soil for growing medium full of nutrients and ideal composition for root development.
Water the essential for all life including ours, at the right times, the correct levels. The fact is an un unbalance or lack of any of these basics, and there is nothing to grow.
Today’s IoT technology delivers the new version “garden tool kit”.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical devices, web based with sensors, actuators, and connectivity which enables these things to connect – creating opportunities for more direct integration of the physical world, resulting in improvements, and in the case of plants; can provide us new sustainability, new information from the soil, and at the very level of the plant itself.
Optimization at the Plant Level
Its starts with monitoring for providing the right environment, and managing it for optimum temperature.
Optimization of humidity, air quality, and helps in ensuring that plants are maintained and flourish.
Whether we are growing indoors which has become popularized due to an easier way to maintain controls, or whether we are growing outdoors in a field; we can measure and derive the analytics to know what the plant will grow, we can further tune in the volume and creating the ultimate growth cycle.
For indoor applications, incorporating LED grow lights and their 3 varying bands of color provides a management of the “essence” of photosynthesis to increase yield and potency: so important for agriculture that services medicinal needs.
Understanding this and how the role of lighting plays in fostering regenerating cell power, helps us to maintain potency and encourage the best the plant can offer us. In an indoor garden, having plants indoors with IoT monitoring and incorporating algorithms for grow lighting throughout the cycle makes it easier to manage variables.
Outdoors we have a different challenge when considering the unknown or perhaps unexpected weather and sunlight conditions. So, monitoring changes – it becomes mobile, thermally sensitive and multifocal lens manufactured on a movable IoT and sensor device. The latest sentry to come along and deliver an ultimate focused view is the drone.
Knowing continuously how the plant is reacting and being able to immediately alert when conditions are adverse is one way of crop optimization. Because plants are captured in various forms of imaging and with mobile IoT such as drone technology, we receive better insights and the data collected can be further analyzed.
Join us in this virtual panel as we explore the future of Agriculture and how IoT plays an important role.