Design and implementation of a soil moisture wireless sensor network

This paper presents the design of a shortest path tree based data collection wireless sensor network to sense soil moisture, soil temperature and relative humidity. Each node in the network follows a synchronized, periodic sleep - wake up schedule in order to maximize the lifetime of the network. The paper also demonstrates the implementation of a cluster based sensor network consisting of 10 nodes grouped as 3 clusters which collects and sends sensed data to a base station (here laptop) through a sink node. Data processing and presentation on the laptop is achieved using custom designed graphical user interface (GUI) in MATLAB. Nodes are kept approximately 8m apart covering an area of 400 m2. The implemented sensor network features using in house developed, low cost dual probe heat pulse (DPHP) soil moisture sensor, soil temperature sensor and energy efficient wireless transmission using clustering architecture for agricultural application. Field testing for 20% moisture level is demonstrated while feasibility of measuring the moisture levels from 0% to 40% is established from lab experiments.

[1]  Ameer Ahmed Abbasi,et al.  A survey on clustering algorithms for wireless sensor networks , 2007, Comput. Commun..

[2]  Vinay S. Palaparthy,et al.  Review of polymer-based sensors for agriculture-related applications , 2013 .

[3]  Yibin Ying,et al.  A Wireless Design of Low-Cost Irrigation System Using ZigBee Technology , 2009, 2009 International Conference on Networks Security, Wireless Communications and Trusted Computing.

[4]  Dimitri P. Bertsekas,et al.  Data networks (2nd ed.) , 1992 .

[5]  Maryam Shojaei Baghini,et al.  Soil Moisture Measurement System for DPHP Sensor and In Situ Applications , 2013, 2013 International Symposium on Electronic System Design.

[6]  Bhaskar Krishnamachari,et al.  Fast Data Collection in Tree-Based Wireless Sensor Networks , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.

[7]  Manijeh Keshtgary,et al.  An Efficient Wireless Sensor Network for Precision Agriculture , 2012 .

[8]  Chee-Yee Chong,et al.  Sensor networks: evolution, opportunities, and challenges , 2003, Proc. IEEE.

[9]  Jan M. Rabaey,et al.  Lightweight time synchronization for sensor networks , 2003, WSNA '03.

[10]  Tracy Camp,et al.  Comparison of broadcasting techniques for mobile ad hoc networks , 2002, MobiHoc '02.

[11]  Ian F. Akyildiz,et al.  Sensor Networks , 2002, Encyclopedia of GIS.

[12]  Jun Zheng,et al.  Wireless Sensor Networks: A Networking Perspective , 2009 .

[13]  Marco Zennaro,et al.  Successful deployment of a Wireless Sensor Network for precision agriculture in Malawi , 2012, NESEA.

[14]  Sandeep K. S. Gupta,et al.  Spanning tree based algorithms for low latency and energy efficient data aggregation enhanced convergecast (DAC) in wireless sensor networks , 2007, Ad Hoc Networks.