The First International ICST Workshop on Pervasive Computing Systems and Infrastructures

Research Article

Email From The Vineyard

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1109/TRIDENTCOM.2009.4976241,
        author={Christine Jardak and Krisakorn Rerkrai and Aleksandar Kovacevic and Janne Riihijarvi and Petri Mahonen},
        title={Email From The Vineyard},
        proceedings={The First International ICST Workshop on Pervasive Computing Systems and Infrastructures},
        publisher={IEEE},
        proceedings_a={PCSI},
        year={2009},
        month={5},
        keywords={},
        doi={10.1109/TRIDENTCOM.2009.4976241}
    }
    
  • Christine Jardak
    Krisakorn Rerkrai
    Aleksandar Kovacevic
    Janne Riihijarvi
    Petri Mahonen
    Year: 2009
    Email From The Vineyard
    PCSI
    IEEE
    DOI: 10.1109/TRIDENTCOM.2009.4976241
Christine Jardak1,*, Krisakorn Rerkrai1,*, Aleksandar Kovacevic1,*, Janne Riihijarvi1,*, Petri Mahonen1,*
  • 1: Department of Wireless Networks, RWTH Aachen University Kackertstrasse 9, D-52072 Aachen, Germany
*Contact email: cja@mobnets.rwth-aachen.de, kre@mobnets.rwth-aachen.de, ako@mobnets.rwth-aachen.de, jar@mobnets.rwth-aachen.de, pma@mobnets.rwth-aachen.de

Abstract

We describe the design of a large-scale wireless sensor network for agriculture monitoring. We have deployed a prototype of 64 sensors to monitor a commercial vineyard. The system provides different software modules ranging from filtering raw data to a centralized and a distributed data storage applications. The used protocols ensure reliable and robust communication and load-balancing energy consumption. A backend server provides a user-friendly graphical interface offering two main functionalities: logging communication messages of the employed protocols for diagnostic purposes and providing enduser support for both on-demand and periodic data requests. We highlight the efficiency of such a network in comparison to the traditionally used solution based on individual weather station by deploying both systems in parallel and comparing their reading results. The results clearly demonstrate that wireless sensor networks provide better geographic coverage and an increased spatial resolution compared to traditional solutions. They also enable precise measurements of soil conditions near the plants themselves, increasing the quality of the information available to the farmer.