Smart Farming – IoT Sensors

Smart Farming is the concept of including advanced technologies like the Internet of Things, sensors and actuators, geo-positioning systems, artificial intelligence and robotics in farming for tracking, analyzing, monitoring and automating the farming operations benefitting the agricultural sector significantly.

The incorporation of modern technologies in the field of agriculture has enabled the farmers to trace anomalies in crop growth, crop quality, agricultural equipment functioning and livestock health leading to great improvements in the quality and quantity of the harvest boosted efficiency, optimized resource usage and increased agricultural gains.

Smart Farming based on IoT enhances the entire framework of agriculture by tracking the field in real time.

Sensors used in Smart Farming

Sensors have played a vital role in the digitization of agricultural activities for better decision making and improved yield. The different smart devices and IoT sensors crucial in solving the issues of farming are:

pH sensors: The chemical composition of the soil is a major factor in plant growth. The pH sensors are used to detect the nutrient content of the soil for solving deficiency issues yielding highly productive harvests.
Geo-positioning sensors: The location sensors are used for determining the latitude, longitude and other geographical parameters of the location. They are also used for real-time livestock tracking and equipment tracking for optimized field routing and other farming techniques.

IoT sensors crucial in solving the issues of farming.

Temperature sensors: The weather conditions like temperature, humidity and rainfall also have a key role in farming. The temperature sensors collect this data from the environment to recommend the right crops which can grow and sustain in climatic conditions.
Accelerometer sensors: These are used for asset monitoring and predictive maintenance of the smart agriculture equipment.

Smart cameras and drones: The drones equipped with sensors and smart cameras are used for mapping and surveying the farms to give insights regarding crop health, irrigation, fertilizer spraying, yield prediction, detecting weeds and other unwanted plants to automatically and accurately dispense herbicides and pesticides and much more.

In Internet of Things (IoT) applications, smart cameras are key sensors and often capture highly sensitive information.

IoT soil monitoring uses technology to enable farmers and producers to increase yields, reduce pests and optimize capital.

Soil moisture sensors: The optical and dielectric real-time soil moisture sensors assess the moisture levels of the soil and provide information regarding the water required for irrigation to enhance crop conditions, increasing efficiency and crop yields.

Airflow sensors: measure various types of soil properties including soil air permeability, compaction, structure, soil type and produce unique identifying signatures.
Waterflow sensors: monitor the water tank levels remotely and configure alerts when specific levels are reached leading to optimized utilization of water resources.
Actuators: The actuators play an important role in creating smart farms by implementing automation in agriculture. They comprise of smart devices like smart sprinklers for automated irrigation and other automated devices facilitating sustainable conditions for the product, reducing waste automatically, adjusting to the changing conditions to provide the right amount of light and so on.

Conslusion

The smart devices, sensors and IoT in the agriculture industry has helped the farmers to monitor the farms remotely, analyse the real-time data for better decision making, optimize the resource usage thus enhancing the quality of crops, boosting the yields and increasing profitability leading to sustainable agricultural practices.

Smart Farming – IoT Sensors

Sensors used in Smart Farming

Conslusion

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