Comparative Analysis of IoT Communication Technologies for Monitoring Agricultural Areas in the Provinces of Cotopaxi and Tungurahua - Ecuador

Abstract

The development of agriculture is based on the improvement of living standards, at the national level in the provinces of Cotopaxi and Tungurahua represents a topic of special interest, currently the agricultural sector is impacted by climate change, temperature and humidity variation, and soil alteration. This is why the Internet of Things with the integration of wireless communication technologies and sensors offer the possibility of generating technological systems that collect data from crop fields. The present study was based on the comparative analysis of wireless communication technologies for IoT in the monitoring of agricultural areas, compiling studies of scientific databases identifying global, American continent and local trends. The communication technologies were evaluated with their characteristics based on the Hierarchical Analysis Process method, obtaining Sigfox, LoRa and Zigbee as the main alternatives for radio coverage simulations. Subsequently, the radiation pattern of the technologies was obtained, selecting Sigfox for its characteristics and performance as the technology to be implemented for the network and sensor node operation. It was concluded that Sigfox is suitable for monitoring agricultural crops due to its wide coverage range, economic cost and low data sending rate, being a communication alternative for early warning of frost detection.