An architecture and its tools for integrating IoT and BPMN in agriculture scenarios

Agricultural greenhouses have improved productivity in the cultivation of specific crops. Efforts towards the automation of these environments have been carried out with the application of different technologies. However, the absence of a solution that comprises a complete chain of the automation process has been noted. Internet of Things (IoT) is a technology that can offer solutions for the modernization of agricultural environments, making it possible to automate processes, to predict situations, and to improve production activities. Moreover, IoT solutions and businesses process should be integrated into a common framework to provide a more efficient production process control, since business rules are often dynamic and might vary according to agriculture practices. In this fashion, we propose an architecture for sensing and actuating in controlled agricultural environments using business rules modeling as the central artifact for the automation of production chains. To validate the proposed architecture, we present a case study in which we describe the implementation and tools to support vegetable production. The study showed that the architecture is feasible to monitor crops, to collaborate to maximize yield and to control the use of inputs and agrochemicals. Furthermore, it caters for culture monitoring in real time, offering information to producers to aid decision making.