Sensor network in the wireless UHF band

Abstract

Biological research in agriculture needs a lot of specialized electronic sensors in order to fulfill different goals, like as: climate monitoring, soil and fruit assessment, control of insects and diseases, chemical pollutants, identification and control of weeds, crop tracking, and so on. That research must be supported by consistent biological models able to simulate diverse environmental conditions, in order to predict the right human actions before risky biological damage could be irreversible. In this paper an experimental distributed network based on climatic and biological wireless sensors is described, for providing real measurements in order to validate different biological models used for viticulture applications. Firstly the experimental network for field automatic data acquisition is presented, as a system based in a distributed process. Then, the design of the wireless network is explained in detail, with a previous discussion about the state-of-the-art, and some measurements for viticulture research are pointed out. Finally future developments and conclusions are stated. © 2010 ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.