UNIT-V

CASE STUDIES
 AGRICULTURAL IOT
 IOT enabled technologies are widely used for
increasing crop productivity, generating significant
revenue, and efficient farming
 Agricultural IOT systems perform crop health
monitoring, water management, crop security,
farming vehicle tracking, automatic seeding, and
automatic pesticide spraying over the agricultural
fields
 In an IOT based agricultural system, different
sensors necessary have to be transmitted to a
centralized entity such as a server, cloud, or fog
devices.
 Further, these data have to be processed and
analyzed to provide various agricultural services
 Finally, a user should be able to access these
services from handheld devices or computers

FIG 12.1 ARCHITECTURE OF AGRICULTURAL IOT
FIG 12.2 COMPONENTS OF AGRICULTURAL
IOT
 COMPONENTS OF AN AGRICULTURAL IOT
 The development of an agricultural IOT has helped farmers
enhance crop productivity and reduce the overhead of
manual operations of the agricultural equipment in the
fields
 Different components such as analytics, drone, cloud
computing, sensors, hand-held devices, and wireless
connectivity enable agricultural IOT as depicted in Fig 12.2
 The different components of an agricultural IOT are
discussed as follows:
 Cloud Computing: Sensors such as the camera, devices
to measure soil moisture, soil humidity, and soil pH-level
are used for serving different agricultural applications
 These sensors produce a huge amount of agricultural data
that need to be analyzed
 Sometimes, based on the data analysis, action needs to be
taken, such as switching on the water pump for irrigation.
 Further, the data from the deployed sensors are
required to be stored on a long-term basis since it may
be useful for serving future applications. Thus, for
agricultural data analysis and storage, the cloud plays
a crucial role
 Sensors : Sensors are major backbone of any IOT
applications. Similarly, for agricultural IOT
applications, the sensors are an indispensable
component
 A few of the common sensors used in agriculture are
sensors for soil moisture, water level, and temperature
 Cameras: Imaging is one of the main components of
agriculture.
 Therefore, multispectral, thermal and RGB cameras
are commonly used for scientific agricultural IOT
 These cameras are used for estimating the nitrogen
status, thermal stress, water stress, and crop damage
due to inundation, as well as infestation
 Video cameras are used for crop security
 Satellites : In modern precision agriculture, satellites are
extensively used to extract information from field imagery
 The satellite images are used in agricultural applications
to monitor different aspects of the crops such as crop
health monitoring and dry zone assessing over a large
area
 Analytics : Analytics contribution to modern agriculture
massively. Currently with the help of analytics, farmers
can take different agricultural decisions, such as
estimating the required amount of fertilizer and water in
an agricultural field and estimating the type of crops that
need to be cultivated during the upcoming season
 Moreover, analytics is not only responsible for making
decisions locally
 It is used to analyze data for the entire agricultural supply
chain
 Data analytics can also be used for estimating the crop
demand in the market
 Wireless connectivity : One of the main
components of agricultural IOT is wireless
connectivity
 Wireless connectivity enables the transmission of the
agricultural sensor data from the field to the
cloud/server
 Also enables farmers to access various application
services over handheld devices, which reply on
wireless connectivity for communicating with the
cloud/server
 Handheld devices : Over the last few years, e-
agriculture has become very popular
 One of the fundamental components of e-agriculture
is a handheld device such as a Smartphone
 Farmers can access different agricultural information
such as soil and crop conditions of their field and
market tendency, over their smart phones
 Additionally, farmers can also control different field
equipment such as pumps from their phones
 Drones : Currently, the use of drones has become
very attractive in different applications such as
surveillance, healthcare, product delivery,
photography, and agriculture
 Drone imaging is an alternative to satellite imaging
in agriculture
 In continuation to providing better resolution land
mapping visuals, drones are used in agriculture of
crop monitoring, pesticide spraying, and irrigation
 Agri-Chain : Agricultural food chain represents the
different stages that are involved in agricultural
activity right from the agricultural fields to the
consumers
 Fig 12.3 depicts a typical agricultural food chain
with the different operations that are involved in it
 Additionally, the figure depicts the applications of
different IOT components required for performing
these agricultural operations
 In the agri-chain, farming is the first stage
 In farming various operations, such as seeding,

irrigation, fertilizer spreading, and pesticide sparing

are involved
 For performing these operations, different IOT

components are used

 As an example, for monitoring the soil health, soil

moisture and temperature sensors are used.

 Drones are used for spraying pesticides and through

wireless connectivity a report on field soil conditions

is sent directly to users handheld device or cloud
 After farming the next stage in the agri-chain is

transport
 In transport smart vehicles can automatically load

and unload crops

 The global positioning systems (GPS) plays an
important role by tracking these smart devices, and
radio frequency identification (RFID) is used to collect
information regarding the presence of a particular
container of crop at a warehouse
 Storage is one of the important operations in the

agri-chain
 It is responsible for storing crops on a long term basis

 Typically cloud storage is used for preserving the

crops for a long time and providing them with the

necessary climatic and storage conditions and
protection
 In the storage stores, cameras are used to keep a

check and protect the harvested crops

FIGURE 12.3 USE OF IOT
COMPONENTS IN THE AGRICULTURAL
CHAIN
 The camera feeds are transferred through wireless
connectivity to a remote server or a cloud
infrastructure
 Moreover the amount and type of crops stored in a

storage location are tracked and recorded with the

help of sensors and cloud computing
 For pushing the crop into market, processing plays a

crucial role in an agri chain.

 Processing includes proper drying and packaging of

crops
 For drying and packaging, different sensors are used

 Packaging is the immediate operation prior to pushing

the crop into market

 Thus it is essential to track every package and store

all the details related to the crop in the cloud

 Logistics enables the transfer of the packed crops to
 These smart vehicles are equipped with different
sensors that help in loading and unloading the
packed position of the packed crops at any instant
and tracking their whereabouts
 All the logistical information gets logged in the cloud

with the help of wireless connectivity

 Finally, the packed items reach the market using

logistical channels.
 From the market these are stored in the form of

records in the cloud

 ADVANTAGES OF IOT AGRICULTURE
 Modern technological advancements and the rapid
developments in IOT components have gradually
increased agricultural productivity.
 Agricultural IOT enables the autonomous execution

of different agricultural operations.

 The specific advantages of the agricultural IOT are

as follows:
 Automatics seeding: IOT based agricultural systems

are capable of autonomous seeding and planting

over the agricultural fields.
 These systems significantly reduce manual efforts,

error probability, and delay in seeding and planting

 Efficient fertilizer and pesticide distribution:
Agricultural IOT has been used to develop solutions
that are capable of applying and controlling the
amount of fertilizers and pesticides efficiently
 These solutions are based on the analysis of crop

health
 Water management : The excess distribution of

water in the agricultural fields may affect the

growth of crops
 On the other hand, the availability of global water

resources is finite
 The constraints of limited and often scarce usable

water resources is an influential driving factor for

the judicious and efficient distribution of agricultural
water resources
 Using the various solutions available for agricultural
IOT, water can be distributed efficiently, all the
while increasing field productivity and yields
 The IOT-enabled agricultural systems are capable of

monitoring the water level and moisture in the soil,

and accordingly, distribute the water to the
agricultural fields
 Real time and remote monitoring: Unlike traditional

agriculture, in IOT based farming a stakeholder can

remotely monitor different agricultural parameters,
such as crop and soil conditions, plant health and
weather conditions
 Moreover, using a smart handheld device

(e.g.cellphone), a farmer can actuate on-field

farming machinery such as water pump, valves and
other pieces of machinery

 Easy yield estimation : Agricultural IOT solutions
can be used to record and aggregate data, which
may be spatially or temporarily diverse, over long
periods
 These records can be used to come up with various

estimates related to farming and farm management

 The most prominent among these estimates is crop

yields, which is done based on established crop

models and historical trends
 Production overview: The detailed analysis of crop

production, market rates, and market demand are

essential factors for farmer to estimate optimized
crop yields and decide upon the essential steps for
future cropping practices
 Unlike traditional practices, IOT based agricultural
acts as a force multiplier for farmers to enabling
them to have a stronger hold on their farming as well
as crop management practices, and that too mostly
autonomously,
 Agricultural IOT provides a detailed product overview

on the farmers handheld device

 CASE STUDIES
 In situ assessment of leaf area index (LAI) using IOT
based agricultural system : LAI is considered as an
essential parameter for the growth of most crops
 LAI is a dimensionless quantity which indicates the

total area per unit ground area

 For determining the canopy (the portion of the plant,

which is above the ground) light, LAI plays an

essential role
 Architecture: IOT based agriculture system

comprises of hardware and software used for LAI

assessment
 The system interfaced 2 types of sensors i) ground-

level sensor ii) reference sensor

 These sensors are used to measure

photosynthetically active radiation (PAR)

 The distance between 2 types of sensors must be optimal.
 The above ground sensor ® acts as a cluster head while

the other sensor nodes (Gs) are located below the canopy
 These Gs and R connect and form a star topology

 A solar panel is used to charge the cluster head

 The cluster head is attached to a central base station,

which act as a gateway

 This gateway connects to IOT infrastructure as in Fig 12.4

 HARDWARE : For sensing and transmitting the data from

the deployment field to a centralized unit, such as server

and a cloud, different hardware components are used in
the system
 The commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) TelosB platform is

used in the system

 The TelosB motes are equipped with 3 types of sensors:

Temperature, humidity and light sensors

FIGURE 12.4 SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
 A Raspberry-Pi is used as a cluster head, which connects
with 4 ground sensor motes
 The Rasberry-Pi is a tiny single board, which works as a

computer and is used to perform different operations in

IOT
 Humidity and wt plants intermittently cause attenuation

to the system which is minimized with the help of

forward error coding (FEC) technique
 The real deployment of the LAI assessment system

involves various environmental and wild life challenges

 Therefore for reliable data delivery, the redundant

approach of using both wired and wireless connectivity.

 In the first deployment generation, USB power supply is

used to power-up the sensor motes

 Additionally, the USB is used for configuring the sensor

board and accessing the failure as per requirement

 In this setup, a mechanical timer is used to switch off
the sensor nodes during the night
 In the 2 deployment generation, the cluster is

formed with wireless connectivity

 The ground sensor motes consists of external

antennas, which helps to communicate with the

cluster board
 A Raspberry-Pi with long term evaluation (LTE) is

used as a gateway in this system

 Communication: The LAI system consists of

multiple components, such as WSN, IOT gateway,

and IOT based network
 The public land mobile network (PLMN) is used to

establish connectivity between external IOT

networks and the gateway
 The data are analyzed and visualized with the help

of a farm management information system (FMIS),

 Further: a prevalent data transport protocol: MQTT is
used in the system
 MQTT is a very light weight, publish/subscribe

message protocol, which is widely used for different

IOT applications
 The wireless LAN is used for connecting the cluster

head with gateway

 The TelosB motes are based on the IEEE 802.15.4

wireless protocol
 SOFTWARE: Tiny-OS an open-source low power

operating system is used

 Typically, in this system, the data acquired from the

sensor node is stored with timestamp and sequence

number (SN)
 For wired deployment (the first generation

deployment), the sampling rate used is 30

samples/hour
 However, in the wireless deployment (the second
generation), the sampling rate is significantly reduced
to 6 samples/hour
 The TinyOS is capable of activating low power

listening mode of a mote, which is used to switching a

mote into lw power mode during its idle state
 In the ground sensor, TelocB motes broadcast the data

frame, and thec luster head (Raspberry-Pi) receives it

 The received data is transmitted to the gateway

 Besides acquiring ground sensor data, the Raspberry-

Pi works as a cluster head.

 In this system, the cluster head can reboot any

affected ground sensor node automatically

 IOT Architecture : The MQTT broker runs in the

Internet server of the system

 This broker is responsible for receiving the data from

the WSN
 In the system, the graphical user interface (GUI) is
built using Apache server
 The visualization of the data is performed at the

server itself
 Further, when a sensor fails the server informs the

user
 The server can provide different system related

information to the Smartphone of the registered user

 SMART IRRIGATION
MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
 In precision agriculture, the regular monitoring of
different agricultural parameters such as water level, soil
moisture, fertilizers, and soil temperature are essential
 Moreover, for monitoring these agricultural parameters, a

farmer needs to go to field and collect the data.

 Excessive water supply in the agriculture field can

damage the crop

 On the other hand, insufficient water supply in the

agricultural field also affects the healthy growth of crops

 Thus, efficient and optimized water supply in the

agricultural field is essential

 This case study highlights a prototype of an irrigation

system, developed at the Indian Institute of Technology,

Kharagpur, funded by the Govt. of India
 The primary objective of this system is to provide a
web-based platform to the farmer for managing the
water supply of an irrigated agricultural field
 This system is capable of providing a farmer friendly

interface by which the field conditions can be

monitored
 With the help of this system, a farmer can take the

necessary decision for the agricultural field based on

the analysis of the data
 However, the farmer need not worry about the

complex background architecture of the system

 It is an affordable solution for the farmers to access

the agricultural field data easily and remotely

 ARCHITECTURE : The architecture of this system

consists of 3 layers : Sensing and actuating layer,

remote processing and service layer, and application
layer
 These layers perform dedicated tasks depending on
the requirement
 Figure 12.5 depicts the architecture of he system

 The detailed functionalities of different layers of this

system are as follows:

 i) Sensing and Actuating layer : The layer deals

with different physical devices, such as sensor

nodes, actuators, and communication modules
 In the system, specially designed sensor node works

as a cluster head to collect data from other sensor

nodes, which are deployed on the field for sensing
the value of soil moisture and water level
 A cluster head is equipped with 2 communication

module : ZigBee (IEEE 802.15.4)and General Packet

Radio Service (GPRS).

FIGURE 12.5 ARCHITECTURE : SMART
IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
 The communication between the deployed sensor
nodes and the cluster head takes place with the help
of ZigBee
 Further, the cluster head use GPRS to transmit data

to the remote server

 An electrically crasable programmable read-only

memory (EEPROM) , integrated with the cluster

head, stores a predefined threshold value of water
level and soil moisture
 When the sensed value of the deployed sensor node

drops below this predefined threshold value, a

solenoid (pump) activates to start the irrigation
process
 In the system, the standard EC-05 soil moisture

sensor is used along with the water level sensor,

which is specially designed and developed for this
project.
FIGURE 12.6 WATER LEVEL SENSOR AND
PROCESSING BOARD
 ii) Processing and Service layer : This layer acts
as an intermediate layer between the sensing and
actuating layer
 The sensed and process data is stored in the server

for future use

 Moreover, these data are accessible at any time from

any remote location by authorized users

 Depending on the sensed values from the deployed

sensor nodes, the pump actuates to irrigate the field

 A processing board as depicted in Fig 12.6 (b)

 iii) Application layer : The farmer can access the

status of the pump, whether it is in switch on/off,

and the value of different soil parameters from
his/her cell phone
 This information is accessible with the help of the

integrated GSM facility of the farmers cell phone

 Additionally, an LED array indicator and LCD system
is installed in the farmers house, Using the LCD and
LED a farmer can easily track the condition of his
field
 A part from this mechanism, a farmer can manually

access field information with the help of a web-

based application
 Moreover, the farmer can control the pump using

his/her cell phone from a remote location

 Deployment : The system has been deployed and

experienced in 2 agricultural fields. (i) an

agricultural field at the IIT Kharagpur, India and (ii)
Benapur, a village near IIT Kharagpur, India
 Both the agricultural fields were divided into 10

equal sub fields of 3x3 m2

 In order to examine the performance, the system
 Each of these sub-fields consists of a solenoid valve ,
a water level sensor, and a soil moisture sensor,
along with a processing board
 On the other hand, the remaining 6 sub-filed were

irrigated through a manual conventional irrigation

process
 The comparison analysis between these six and four

fields summarily reports that the designed system

performance is superior to the conventional manual
process of irrigation
 VEHICULAR IOT
 The use of connected vehicles is increasing rapidly
across the globe.
 Consequently, the number of on-road accidents and

mismanagement of traffic is also increasing

 The increasing number of vehicles gives rise to the

problem of parking
 However, the evolution of IOT helps to form a

connected vehicular environment to manage the

transportation system efficiently
 Vehicular IOT systems have penetrated different

aspects of the transportation ecosystem, including

on-road to off-road traffic management, driver safety
for heavy to small vehicles are capable of
communicating and sharing their information
 Moreover, IOT enables a vehicle to sense its internal
and external environments to make certain
autonomous decisions
 The architecture of the vehicular IOT is divided into

3 sub layers : device, fog and cloud

 Device : The device layer is the bottom-most layer,

which consists of the basic infrastructure of the

scenario of the connected vehicle
 This layer includes the vehicles and road side units

(RSU). These vehicles contain certain sensors which

gather the internal information of the vehicles.
 On the other hand the RSU works as a local

centralized unit that manages the data from the

vehicle
 FOG: In vehicular IOT systems, fast decision making

is pertinent to avoid accidents and traffic

mismanagement
FIGURE 13.1 ARCHITECTURE OF
VEHICULAR IOT
 In such situations, fog computing plays a crucial role
by providing decisions in real time, much near to the
devices
 Consequently the fog layer helps to minimise data

transmission time in a vehicular IOT system

 Cloud : For Computing handles the data processing

near the devices to take decisions instantaneously

 How ever for the processing of huge data, for

computing is not enough. Therefore, in such a

situation, cloud computing is used
 In a vehicular IOT system, cloud computing helps to

handle process that involve a huge amount of data

 Further, for long term storage, cloud computing is

used as a scalable resource in vehicular IOT system