Agro-sense: Precision agriculture using sensor-based wireless mesh networks

Advances in wireless personal area networks have made the practical deployment of various services possible, which until a few years ago was considered extremely costly or labor intensive. We build such a wireless sensor network for precision agriculture where real time data of the climatological and other environmental properties are sensed and relayed to a central repository. The architecture comprises of three distinct sections - (a) the sensor-nodes (b) the wireless mesh network and (c) the actuation components. The sensors are selected based on the properties suited for the most common crops and we identify four such attributes. The sensor network is based on the IEEE-802.15.4 standard and we develop a new static routing algorithm suited for the sensing application. The algorithm overrides the deficiency of the Hierarchical Routing scheme inherent in the ZigBee specification where the C skip addressing algorithm limits the possible depth of the network topology due to address wastage. The new algorithm maintains the hierarchical network topology and thus ensures routing at its optimal best. The algorithms for both addressing and routing are provided. The actuation components are also a part of mesh network and are activated wirelessly for controlling irrigation and fertigation.