Deploying Low-Cost and Full Edge-IoT/AI System for Optimizing Irrigation in Smallholder Farmers Communities

Abstract

About 35% of the world’s food are produced in small-scale farms while only occupying about 12% of all agricultural land. However, smallholder farmers usually face a number of constraints and the water resource is one of the major constraints. The usage of smart technologies and especially sensor systems in so-called Smart Farming Technologies can be applied to the optimization of irrigation. Regardless of the irrigation technique, soil sensors are promising in providing data that can be used to further reduce the usage of water. However, despite all these possibilities, the smallholder community are still reluctant to step into technology-based systems. There are various reasons but prohibitive cost and complexity of deployment usually appear overwhelming. The PRIMA INTEL-IRRIS project has the ambition to make digital and smart farming technologies attractive & more accessible to these communities by proposing the intelligent irrigation “in-the-box” concept. This paper describes the low-cost and full edge-IoT/AI system targeting the smallholder farmers communities and how it can provide the intelligent irrigation “in-the-box” concept.

An Innovative Smart and Sustainable Low-Cost Irrigation System for Anomaly Detection Using Deep Learning

“…In addition, they developed an Android application called "Kistan Pakistan" that allows illiterate and low-literate farmers to remotely administer its functions. Pham et al [ 20 ] described a low-cost and full edge-IoT/AI system targeting smallholder farmer communities and how it can provide the intelligent irrigation “in-the-box” concept. It offers an “out-of-the-box” function, meaning that the control component that recommends irrigation is integrated into the IoT gateway and, as a result, does not need an internet connection, as implemented by WAZIUP partner [ 27 ].…”

“…However, a compromise will be made to accomplish the primary aim: to create a low-cost irrigation system that SFCs can implement out of the box. The soil moisture sensor component follows a basic, resilient, and cost-effective design that has been substantially influenced by several do-it-yourself projects and prior contributions [ 6 , 20 ]. Unlike low-cost sensors that often offer unreliable data, INTEL-IRRIS will significantly improve the quality of collected data with (i) improved calibration of various sensors; (ii) the calculation of the needed amount of water based on the farm’s soil texture and crop coefficient; and (iii) the prediction of environmental factors based on field sensory data using DL.…”