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IoT µCANOPYMicroclimate monitoring of the canopy
Under a collaboration agreement between the Technical University of Loja (UTPL) in Ecuador and the School of Agronomical Studies of the Universidad de Castilla La Mancha, researchers are conducting a study whose main objective is to monitor the microclimate conditions of the canopy in coffee plantations: a strategic crop in Ecuador, whose production is very limited, but of the greatest quality in the world markets.
Studying the behavior of the microclimate of the vegetation cover of coffee plantations should contribute to a better understanding of the culture and, therefore, to make better use of it by optimizing agronomic practices, based on agronomic and physical conditions of a given farm. The results of microclimate variability in coffee cultivation should guide the research efforts addressing the specific constraints of the resources and money being invested. Currently the coffee produced in southern Ecuador is considered a coffee with great potential in the global markets thanks to its outstanding quality, but with a pressing need to improve its productivity. The use of novel IoT and Cloud technologies should prove of great value on the continuous monitoring, analysis and visualization of key environmental parameters: development of vegetation and soil moisture levels. One of the first tasks of the project efforts has been the installation of network of 4 nodes with two probes of temperature and relative humidity, a soil moisture probe and a probe of solar radiation, each.
Throughout the use of the latest developments in Cloud services, all stakeholders will have access to various services, such as the visualization of the status of each node and the data being captured, reports on the water and fertilizer resources being used during a given period of time, visualization of environmental parameters in real-time, among others.
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Instituto de Investigación en informática de Albacete, Campus Universitario s/n 02071 |