Smart Agriculture as a Cyber Physical System: A Real-World Deployment
Bouali Et-taibi, Mohamed Riduan Abid, Ismail Boumhidi, Driss Benhaddou
Abstract
Water is becoming a scarce resource. With the steadily increasing demand on food, the optimization of resources usage proves indispensable for a sustained agriculture. In this context, Smart Agriculture (SA) is emerging as a promising field leveraging on the introduction of ICT (Information & Communication Technology) with the ultimate goal of both optimal usage of resources (e.g., groundwater, fertilizers, and electrical energy) and better crop yields. The smartness of SA stems from the real-time data acquisition, processing, and dissemination. SA is a Cyber Physical System (CPS). It continuously monitors and acts upon physical entities (e.g., soil, weather, pumps, etc.). Wireless sensors/actuators, along with the control unit, constitute, the main ICT components in SA. In this paper, we shed further light onto the ICT components of SA and present the details of a real-world testbed deployment. We present the system architecture, the wireless communication infrastructure, and the processing behind the control unit. The latter is an intelligent system using Fuzzy logic. Furthermore, we present venues for renewable energy integration into SA and advocate the use of batteries for optimal energy usage.