Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless Sensor Network

A wireless sensor network will provide information about its environment with the collection of data by the sensor nodes. Not only EC of water will be measured but many other things like temperature, light, humidity and other physical magnitudes.

Low-Cost EC sensors

Low-Cost EC sensors

The novel EC sensors used in the SMART-PADDY system will inject a pulse signal, measure the decaying exponential response of the circuit at three particular time instants, and use the three resulting equations to solve for the three unknown components, with the objective of getting the conductivity value. This method leads to a substantial simplification in hardware and computation time.

Kick Off Project

Kick Off Project

The SMART-PADDY Project will be officially launched in Seville, on October 6-7th 2011. End-user cultivators and industry manufacturers’ representatives from the agricultural rice sector from Europe will come together with European research providers for this two day meeting, which will mark the start of this ambitious Project.

Project

This project will develop a wireless sensor network comprised of low-cost EC measurement nodes and an autonomous power supply based on energy harvesting, that will be capable of transmitting readings in real-time to a central server. This data will enable cultivators to effectively manage and protect of their paddy fields and greatly reduce floodwater consumption.

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Background

Agriculture is by far the biggest consumer of water and rice is more water consuming than many other crops: in continuous flooding cultivation it takes about six times the water required by wheat. In fact, rice production consumes about 30 % of all freshwater used worldwide and production is challenged by the increasing shortage of water resource in the world and by the limitation of water resource in the seasonal drought areas.

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Solution

The SMART-PADDY project will build upon existing research into wireless sensor networks, low-cost EC sensors to measure water salinity and energy harvesting methods for the development of a prototype. The performance of the prototype will be validated and the treated rice and its cultivation process analysed to ensure its safety and quality of its nutritional values.

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