Evaluation of Suitable Radio Frequencies for Data Transmission in Potato Warehouses

During recent years, automation and optimized production processes within a variety of different agriculture sectors allowed farmers to achieve higher harvesting rates and therefore to maximize the outcome of their efforts. Besides harvesting, storing the crop is the next challenging step in improving agricultural practices. Monitoring and adjusting the environmental conditions in storage are important tasks to achieve an optimal and efficient storability. This paper focuses on the communication part of such a monitoring system. Modern warehouses are usually organized as box storage, which means that the crop to be stored is filled into boxes and then piled up in large warehouses. Selective ventilation and air conditioning ensure a maximum storage period. This paper examines which radio frequencies are suitable for transmitting sensor data from stored boxes to a sink. The obtained sensor data could be used, for example, to control the air conditioning of the warehouse more precisely. The investigations are carried out on potatoes as an example, for which first a simulation and then a prototypical sensor node is created.