Internet of underground things: Sensing and communications on the field for precision agriculture

Abstract

Abstract-The projected increases in World population and need for food have recently motivated adoption of information technology solutions in crop fields within precision agriculture approaches. Internet of underground things (IOUT), which consists of sensors and communication devices, partly or completely buried underground for real-time soil sensing and monitoring, emerge from this need. This new paradigm facilitates seamless integration of underground sensors, machinery, and irrigation systems with the complex social network of growers, agronomists, crop consultants, and advisors. In this paper, state-of-the-art communication architectures are reviewed, and underlying sensing technology and communication mechanisms for IOUT are presented. Recent advances in the theory and applications of wireless underground communication are also reported. Major challenges in IOUT design and implementation are identified.

Internet of Things in Smart Agriculture: Enabling Technologies

“…Precision agriculture [4], [20], [3], [8], [10], [12], [19], [20], [24], [36], [38], [35], [37], [32], [34], [26], [27], [28], [29], [25], [31], [33], [30], [41] [42], [43], [44], is the area in which technology can be used to effectively manage agriculture by understanding the temporal and spatial changes in soil, crop, production, and management through innovative techniques. The emerging Information Age will significantly affect the way we conduct and teach precision agriculture in universities and institutes of higher education.…”

Subsurface MIMO: A Beamforming Design in Internet of Underground Things for Digital Agriculture Applications

“…Moreover, digital agriculture solutions including enabling technologies for subsurface antenna design [8], underground cognitive radio [20], and soil moisture sensing using subsurface radio-wave propagation have been developed for IOUT [11,12]. Accordingly, we devised a subsurface planar antenna [8], which combats adverse effects of time-variant subsurface radio channel characteristics and extends communication ranges of underground radios.…”

“…Accordingly, we devised a subsurface planar antenna [8], which combats adverse effects of time-variant subsurface radio channel characteristics and extends communication ranges of underground radios. This allows for development of architectures for connected soil moisture-sensing networks and automated irrigation solutions [11,12]. Moreover, it is shown that software-defined operation in underground communications can extend the capacity of the UG channel.…”

“…This design is useful for subsurface communication system where sophisticated sensors and software systems are used as data collection tools that measure, record, and manage spatial and temporal data in the field of digital agriculture. systems to sense, analyze, detect, and manage the soil and farm-specific spatial and temporal patterns in the field for sustainability, profitability, and to protect the environment.The Internet of Underground Things (IOUT) have many applications in precision agriculture [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Border monitoring is another important application area of IOUT, where these networks are being used to enforce borders and stop infiltration [13,14].…”

Wireless Underground Communications in Sewer and Stormwater Overflow Monitoring: Radio Waves through Soil and Asphalt Medium

“…To sensing end, IOUT uses various underground things (UTs), which are buried, to perform in situ sensing of the underground data (e.g., soil moisture, salinity, pH, nitrogen, etc.) generated by applications and various environmental phenomenons (e.g., wind and rain information, and solar potential) [1]. To the communication end, IOUT gives a consistent access to sensed data using the combination of underground & above-ground networking infrastructure, and the internet.…”