mioty® for farming – Smart farming on the strawberry farm

Initial situation

With its complex processes and procedures, the environment offers a wide range of measurable parameters. Some of these parameters, such as soil moisture, temperature and humidity, are particularly important for agriculture. In order to derive the right measures from the measurements, the data must be received by the user accurately and almost in real time. Environmental monitoring also faces the challenge of recording data on large areas such as farmland and transmitting it over long distances. This requires a long-term and cost-effective solution for the power supply.

Solution

mioty® is a wireless radio technology that has been specially developed for the Internet of Things (IoT). As a low power wide area network (LPWAN), it enables reliable and energy-efficient transmission of data over several kilometers with the help of so-called “telegram splitting” and is independent of other mobile network providers. By configuring the locations correctly, a range of up to 30 km is possible. The sensors require very little energy and can therefore be operated for several years on batteries alone. Alternatively, they can also supply measurement data completely autonomously by equipping them with a small solar cell.

AGVOLUTION offers a self-sufficient solution with its CLIMAVI measurement sensors. These can record various air and ground parameters from several depths and regularly transmit the data to the user via mioty®. They also have an integrated solar panel that enables an independent power supply. The measurement data from AGVOLUTION can be visualized via a dashboard on the Internet. 

Together with Karls Erdbeerhof in Rövershagen, three CLIMAVIs equipped with mioty® were installed and tested in their fields. The sensors were placed in the ground at a distance of almost 5 km and installed at different heights.

The link between the sensors, mioty® and the Internet is a gateway. A Pioty was used for this in the project. It consists of the “Raspberry Pi” microcontroller and a mioty®-HAT. This module for sending and receiving mioty® transmissions was developed by Fraunhofer IIS. The Pioty can be connected either directly via a local network or with an LTE router via mobile data. In the project, the Pioty was installed with a router on the Karlossos slide tower of the Karls-Erdbeerhof at a height of approx. 15 m to enable communication via mioty® within range of the sensors.  

Benefit

For the strawberry farm, the project focused on monitoring the temperature of the dams and drought. With the mioty®-equipped CLIMAVI sensors, problems with the irrigation hoses could be detected successfully and in good time. This meant that the usual manual inspections by Karls employees were no longer necessary, thus significantly reducing maintenance costs. 

The measurement data from the CLIMAVI sensors also showed that the field areas have climatic differences, so that an adjustment of the irrigation could be identified as a measure depending on the area. The AGVOLUTION sensors are capable of recording up to 12 different environmental parameters, such as air temperature, radiation intensity, humidity and air pressure. With a connected soil sensor, temperature and soil moisture can also be determined at different depths. The sensor technology from also offers further advantages with its dashboard. By visualizing the data on the dashboard, management decisions for the strawberry farm's irrigation strategy could be optimized. 

The use of mioty® technology in agriculture also has other impressive strengths: The low power consumption during data transmission makes the transmitters independent of power sources. This means that the sensor nodes can collect data autonomously. It also enables reliable and cost-effective transmission of data over long distances, even in rural areas with poor network coverage.

Installed sensor networks with mioty® as the transmission method can therefore provide regions and farmers with precise information about their microclimate over large areas and in multiple dimensions. Measurement intervals of 30 minutes or less can be realized. Farmers can thus receive important information in real time. This enables more efficient cultivation of fields, optimized use of resources and ultimately an increase in crop yields.

Other fields of application beyond agriculture can also benefit from mioty® in a similar way. This technology can also be used to monitor the urban climate, areas that are difficult to access such as moors and water level measuring stations for flood detection.