Project Scope: The main purpose of the project is to develop and implement a monitoring and prevention platform for precision agriculture, platform designed using the current 5G specifications and UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) for Smart City and Smart Neighbourhood use-cases. The role of the platform resides in the soil, air and crop monitoring for communities that want to implement urban farming and/or precision agriculture in or close to residential areas, for both safer food production and air quality improvement. When designing the Next Generation Internet (NGI) platform, the use of dedicated wireless sensor networks is considered, as well as point-to-point 6LoWPAN routing for interconnecting and switching between NGI and the wireless sensor network. Crops such as vines and tomatoes will be real-time monitored to detect changes in soil and plant parameters in a timely manner, to act on soil irrigation mechanisms, to identify the stages of diseases that may occur due to air and water pollution, the application of incorrect amount of pesticides, etc. Data gathered from the sensors and those recorded using UAVs will be stored in Cloud and real-time accessed by the beneficiaries via one of the applications available on the terminal electronic equipment (mobile device, laptop, etc.). Subsequently, through data fusion from sensors, decisions will be considered to prevent and combat plant diseases. Withal, alerts and recommendations will be sent to the beneficiaries on their mobile devices. The features of the NGI platform based on 5G and UAVs consider reconfigurability and scalability, low energy consumption, mnimized human interaction and maximum accuracy.
Act 1.1 – NGI specifications for precision agriculture
Act 1.2 – Characteristics of a 5G network for the telemetry system
Act 2.1 – Preliminary design of an NGI 5G platform using WSN
Act 2.2 – Preliminary testing of a NGI 5G platform using WSN
Act 2.3 – Configuration of the telemetry system with UAV
Act 2.4 – Outdoor testing of the NGI 5G platform with WSN and UAV
Act 2.5 – Preliminary processing of WSN and UAV data and images by outdoor testing using complex databases and cloud storage options
Act 2.5 – Preliminary processing of WSN and UAV data and images by outdoor testing using complex databases and cloud storage options
Project Objectives
To ensure the feasibility and the success of the project in and in the proximity of smart cities, the project implies 4 main scientific objectives (SO):
- SO1 consists in technological concept projection and development of basic principles of a NGI mobile platform for precision agriculture starting from the already existing terestrial telemetry system developed by UPB and BEIA Consult. Taking into consideration its behavior, the project team will analyze and integrate now Next Generation Internet and 5G technology facilities achiving in SO1 a preliminary modular NGI mobile platform to be further developed.
- SO2 refers to integration of a dedicated wireless sensors network in the NGI 5G-based platform developed during SO1 to observe the behavior of all modules. New sensors for crop and soil monitoring, as well as plant diseases observation and analysis will be incorporated in the NGI platform from SO1 together with all the functional specifications and requirements for the integrated platform.
- Next the integration of UAVs for image capturing of crop and soil state (on a land in a residential area in Bucharest cultivated with tomatoes) in the NGI platform developed in SO1 and SO2 represents SO3. To ensure the feasibility of the project in SO3 the project team will approach data and image processing in a novel manner using complex databases and Cloud options to store the gathered information from sensors and UAVs. Different tests will be conducted by the project team: unit testing for each individual implemented module and global platform testing to evaluate the correspondence with the original requirements and design specifications.
- In addition, extensive experiments will be performed to highlight the accuracy and efficiency of the NGI platform based on 5G and UAVs for precision agriculture in different use-cases (SO4). The outdoor measurements will take place in a larger agricultural area (in wine-growing zone near Bucharest) in order to extend the database and identify new challenges. Once identified the risks and drawbacks necessary adjustments, calibrations and other updates will be performed in order improve the functionality of the platform integrated in SO3.