Democratizing Data-Driven Agriculture Using Affordable Hardware
Ranveer Chandra, Manohar Swaminathan, Tusher Chakraborty, Jian Ding, Zerina Kapetanovic, Peeyush Kumar, Deepak Vasisht
Abstract
The world needs to sustainably grow more food to feed the growing population of the planet. Data-driven agriculture is a promising technique that can help farmers be more productive, reduce costs, and enable adoption of sustainable agricultural practices. However, the adoption of data-driven agriculture is limited by a lack of affordable technologies, for broadband, sensing, imaging, and insights. In this article, we present an overview of Project FarmBeats, a research project that started in 2014 to increase the adoption of data-driven agricultural practices. We provide an overview of the various components of the FarmBeats architecture, and details of the hardware innovations.