Advanced Distributed Monitoring System for Agriculture based on Wireless Sensor Network Technology

摘要

Nowadays the precision farming concept is often related to new technologies, developed to give detailed information to improve farming production, while preserving the surrounding environment from a rash use of water and pesticides.To this aim, a fully distributed control of the environment must be provided, in addition to user friendly tools for data analysis.The integration of distributed sensors' networks, embedded computational units and intelligent user interfaces result as one of the newest and smartest solutions for precision agriculture.Using smart distributed sensors and implementing data fusing and mining algorithms the final user is enabled to access real time data, and, undertake appropriate actuation strategies, via Internet, anytime and everywhere worldwide.This paper describes a successful application of the above concept in a challenging environmental monitoring context, concerning the remote management of a vineyard. A real case study concerning the deployment of four pilot sites in four different vineyards located in Italy, Chianti region, and in France is reported.The deployed systems, operating since 2005, exhibit unprecedented stand-alone operation capability, with millions collected data so far , thus representing the state-of-the-art in the application of this technology to wine production management. The systems, far beyond being a simple technology demonstrator includes advanced agronomic prediction models capable of supporting critical management decisions in irrigation and chemical treatment management at unprecedented time/space scale.In addition the VineSense system represents the first distributed monitoring system for agriculture, based on wireless sensor network technology, correlating plants' physiology to water management and soil retention capacity.