Precision Agriculture for Greenhouses Using a Wireless Sensor Network

Abstract

Agriculture is one of the most crucial needs of the life since it supports human and animals with food supplies and benefits the human employment and the national economy. Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) has recently applied in precision agriculture to improve the crop yields and apply the agricultural resources at right time and place. In this paper, Greenhouse Smart Management System (GSMS) using WSNs is designed and developed to automatically control, manage and monitor the agricultural parameters and activities inside the greenhouses. The ambient relative humidity and temperature of the greenhouse are measured using sensor nodes. When the sensed parameters exceed threshold values, the irrigation and cooling activities are triggered by activating the fan and water pump devices. GSMS includes also an algorithm to compute the period of irrigation and coolingaccording to the measured agricultural parameters. Hardware and software for the proposed GSMS are developed in this paper. The results show that the GSMS can save the agricultural resources and improve the crop yields, compared with other traditional schemes.