Research Article
IoT Sensing Box to Support Small-Scale Farming in Africa
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-030-70572-5_11, author={Antonio Oliveira-Jr and Carlos Resende and Andr\^{e} Pereira and Pedro Madureira and Jo\"{a}o Gon\`{e}alves and Ruben Moutinho and Filipe Soares and Waldir Moreira}, title={IoT Sensing Box to Support Small-Scale Farming in Africa}, proceedings={Towards new e-Infrastructure and e-Services for Developing Countries. 12th EAI International Conference, AFRICOMM 2020, Eb\'{e}ne City, Mauritius, December 2-4, 2020, Proceedings}, proceedings_a={AFRICOMM}, year={2021}, month={7}, keywords={Internet of Things Sensing box Computer vision Soil analysis Small-scale farmers Rural Africa}, doi={10.1007/978-3-030-70572-5_11} }- Antonio Oliveira-Jr
Carlos Resende
André Pereira
Pedro Madureira
João Gonçalves
Ruben Moutinho
Filipe Soares
Waldir Moreira
Year: 2021
IoT Sensing Box to Support Small-Scale Farming in Africa
AFRICOMM
Springer
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-70572-5_11
Abstract
Small-scale farming has an important role in agriculture. Driven by the popularization of the Internet of things (IoT), this paper presents an IoT sensing box prototype coupled with soil analysis through computer vision to help small-scale farmer improve their yields. The idea of combining image-based soil classification with regular soil sensors is to improve the reliability of the sensed data, by minimizing the occurrence of incorrect estimates for specific soil types. The prototype follows a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) approach, and is based on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and open source software. Additionally, the prototype includes a casing to house all the hardware which was designed considering standard 3D printing to be easily replicated. As the presented solution is currently on a prototype stage, the validations carried out in a controlled, in-lab environment include guaranteeing the proper process for image acquisition and data quality of the computer vision component (images collected from sensor camera, and their quality), suitable data exchange over the sockets, and the sensing box’s ability to gather data.