Smart Farming
IoT project that aimed to modernise traditional farming methods using IoT architecture and design.
The smart farming project was an IoT project that aimed to modernise traditional farming methods using IoT architecture and design.
Role
Team project for the 6th semester of engineering degree
Timeline
6 months (6th semester)
Overview
The project is an efficient design to effectively collect, receive and process data from a plot of land through sensors which can be used for monitoring it and for healthy growth of the crops.Through the course of the project we even designed a IoT based infrastructure that contained sensors and designed printed circuit board that collected data from the farmland and sent it over to a cloud based server. Based on the data received from the farmland an algorithm annotates the data and sets the irrigation system in motion. Paralelly this data is getting uploaded in the cloud for training the algorithm better. This case study is going to be the process we adapted for making the app that worked as the face of the project.As the App is something that needs constant improvements, we decided to develop it simultaneously alongside the other stages of the project.
Having read through numerous research papers, we have found the concepts that helped us get a better understanding about Farming and plant growth and shape the hardware aspect of the project. We also stumbled across information about what constitutes a good IoT infrastructure, wireless communication, data storage and processing methods. This however did not extend into any information about the application. As a project/ application like this does not exist the research, hardware and the project specifics acted as the starting point for the application design.
The Hardware
The IoT module basically has two parts
1.Sensors and their data (collected on field then sent to cloud that is annotated)
2.The infrastructure or the rail bus architecture that supports the sensors (the technology that modernises traditional practices)
So,In general there are multiple sensors and irrigation/pesticide/weedicide motors placed on the farm land. The sensors collect the data required (say moisture value) from multiple points of the farm and send it to the cloud. The algorithm will annotate this data and tell the infrastructure whether it needs to irrigate the farm and in what quantity. The status of all these tasks are shown in the application.Similarly the image processing part of the project analyses the farm land and tells the user where the infestation is taking place so that the farmer can take action accordingly.
Although the app design could be the final stage of the project due to the constant inputs and improvements it needed, we had to go ahead with this stage in parallel to the other stages.
For an ideal farmer or even an urban customer all the jargon of this project would not make sense. Hence we came up with a simple interface where all the components are shown clearly.
The app also helps us monitor and overlook the farming process as we would know everything that is going on in the farm on our phones.
The Design Process
As there are multiple components of the app and again trying to teach a farmer or a customer all that jargon would be futile. We broke it down to the general flow of the app which brings together all the components of the app.
The components of our project are:
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Embedded Systems (Sensors and their calibration)
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Railbus Architecture (The infrastructure that holds all the components and moves across the farmland to acquire the required measurements)
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Image processing
The information architecture for the application was thus constructed. This sitemap was formulated after extensive research and going through user personas to make it as simple as possible. As our project deals with technical jargon that might seem cumbersome and confusing for an average person we adapted a simple and clean user flow
The sitemap or user flow for the Smart Farming Application is given below. Each box represents the various features or different components of the project in the application and has the contents clearly specified. Then came the wireframs and lowfidelities. Lastly the high fidelities were mocked up as well as an interactive prototype.
The Sitemap
Wireframes/Low Fidelities
Hi Fidelities
Prototype
Here is the link to the interactive prototype on figma