It is not a secret that the use of technology has improved the production processes in every single industry around the world. The Industrial Revolutions generated significant growth in terms of efficiency and productivity in manufacturing processes. Although this is well known, it is important to internalize the evolution of this process taking into account the impacts in those places where the wave of progression did not hit with the same intensity than others;
because, even though the revolution of technology is a true fact of the human being history, it did not and do not occur at the same level and during the same time lapse for everybody.
As Rabeh Morrar stated in the introduction of his Journal “The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0): A Social Innovation Perspective” (Rabeh Morrar, 2017), the benefits and challenges that every industrial revolution brought are only for the socioeconomic status of the countries that have engaged in such transformations. A simple example of this reality is that, while the first Industrial Revolution appear in Great Britain, during the second half of the century XVIII, Latin-American countries started seeing its lights one hundred years later with a weaker impact than the pioneers.
Three Industrial Revolutions have passed so far, generating changes in people and countries. All of them had been influenced for so many elements such as social, economic, wars, governments systems, and so on. Every Industrial Revolution had had specific characteristics.
In fact, the first Industrial Revolution, between the years 1760 and 1900, led by Great Britain, made a gigantic step in the textile and steel industries by the use of the steam engine. Later on, from 1900 to 1960, the metallurgy, machine, auto, building, and chemistry industries grew up by the use of internal combustion engine, during the second Industrial Revolution with the
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petrochemicals, pharma, and auto industries by the use of computers, robots, and digitalization, from 1960 to 2000, during this period, the already more developed countries began a transition to the post-industrial era (Prisecaru). These three historical events happened in specific places in the world and developed certain industries of them. Although, there is a fourth Industrial Revolution with something different; a characteristic that any of its predecessors could have.The fourth revolution, happening in our days, has the potential to reach any industry in every place around the world since its main technical achievement is the use of the internet.
The fourth Revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, is characterized by the utilization of the internet as the mean of improvements. It is defined by Alev Kirazli as “the systematic development of an intelligent, real-time capable, horizontal and vertical networking of humans, objects and systems” (Alev Kirazli, 2015). Its benefits can be spread in a wide range of concepts.
In addition to others, one of the most important is the Smart Factory, as a generic term; which is no other thing that equipping the production process with sensors and autonomous systems, with assistance of smart technology, in order to collect data, process them and provide information to the user who will be able to take better decision, which, will end on efficient results. (Heiner Lasi, 2014).
Nowadays, with the deluge of digital information, social media, and access to the information, results redundant to explain the importance of the internet in the life of the people, since it has become part of it. The Fourth Revolution was born as a consequence of the first three, but, contrary to them, it can be easily harnessed and replicated for anyone worldwide.
As a consequence of the innovation process that the Industry 4.0 generated, the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) emerged as a networking infrastructure to interconnect electronic objects with the Internet as a medium (Mohammad Ali Jazayeri, 2015). Currently, the Internet
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of Things is being applied in many different industries thanks not only to its big potential but also because it is a major area in the internet services to be developed (M. Stočes, 2016).
Companies and countries around the world are taking advantage of new trends in technology. The Internet of Things has been in a constant evolution process for almost 20 years so far, and despite this fact, it is still making improvements every day. One major ramification of the aforementioned Industry 4.0, where the IoT is the main protagonist is smart farming, which is the application of information and communication technologies into agriculture. This segment of Industry 4.0 allows the farmers to get a more precise and resource-efficient approach, resulting in a productive and sustainable agricultural production (Ravi Gorli, 2017).
1.2. Research Motivation and Research Objectives
This study, far from analyzing the historical elements around the industrial revolutions and their main actors, or from studying the economic and social gap generated between the pioneers, called developed countries, and those who reached the impact of technology at a lower level, seek learning, understanding, and emulating the application of Internet of Things from successful experiences and propose its application for those places where this technology is not used yet. Specifically, this research will analyze the experimentation of IoT in Smart farming in particular cases around the world and propose its application to conventional farming, in order to improve their efficiency and productivity. In addition, the research will provide detailed information on how to start the implementation of IoT by providing sufficient specifications for farmers and people in general without technical knowledge related to the new trends in technology.
The aim of this research is to provide with integral information regarding the application
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selected as the place where the application of IoT in agricultural will be proposed. This country has the two elements needed for being a proper example for this research: 1. IoT technology has not been used yet in rural areas; and, 2. It is easy to reach information about the country since the author of this research comes from this country. Even though the investigation process and application will be focused in Ecuador, the information will be abundant in order to be able to be replicated in other countries with similar characteristics of the chosen country.As a first step, this study is going to show the current characteristics and situation of the agricultural rural area in Ecuador from a macro and micro perspective, including its evolution and main obstacles. Once this information is presented, two different IoT experimentations will be analyzed, where the use of technology demonstrates an improvement in efficiency. Finally, all these results will be examined and proposed for the Ecuadorian rural agriculture in order to overcome its obstacles. This proposal will contain a practical way of application of the IoT in agriculture, including quotations, financing possibilities, providers, and implementation process.
1.3. Research Questions
In this study, I addressed the following questions:
1. What is the current situation, limitations, and opportunities in rural agriculture in Ecuador?
2. How the application of IoT has developed the agriculture processes around the world?
3. How the IoT application can improve agriculture in Ecuador?
4. How farmers can reach IoT in their production process in the short term?
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The paper is structured as follows:
This research is composed of six chapters, starting from the historical background in the Introduction, the purpose of research and the establishment of objectives; followed by the research questions. The second chapter explores, through the literature review, the development and innovation of the Internet of Things, focusing on smart agriculture, and concluding with the reality of agriculture in Ecuador. The third chapter justifies the research methods and analyzes the benefits of using the data collection method for this research. On the other hand, in chapter four, an in-depth analysis is carried out, with the objective of identifying the IoT systems applicable to Ecuadorian agriculture and their positive impacts. Chapter five studies an approach to achieve the application of IoT in smart agriculture in Ecuador. Finally, in chapter six, the conclusions of the investigation are presented.
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2.1. The Internet of Things Development and Innovation
In order to reach the main points of this research, it is important to define the basic concepts regarding the Internet of Things. As it was stated in the background, the Fourth Revolution generated a significant impact in every industry around the world basically for the unlimited uses that internet offers. Internet is a powerful global communication system able to provide immediate information exchange, it is interconnected by infinite networks in small and big scopes. It broke with the classic barriers such as cultural or geographical, providing access to its billions of users to any kind of content, as well as, resources and services (Madakam, 2015).
According to the website “Our World in Data”, (a collaborative effort between researchers at the University of Oxford and the non-profit organization Global Change Data Lab), the number of users, since internet first appeared back in 1990, has increased up to 44 million in 1995; only five years later in 2000, the number of users worldwide reached 413 million; and, by 2016 the growth rate accelerated, even more, registering 3.4 billion of users in the whole Globe. (Julia Murphy, 2019). Figure 1 summarizes the growth of internet users by region, according to the same source, from 1990 to 2016.
There are many studies that cited a statistic generated by the ICT firm Ericson, which is that by 2020 there will more or less 500 billion devices connected in some way to the Internet, number of which around 50 billion will be mobile wireless devices. This fact brings with it important changes in the behavior of Society and in a globalized world where information is increasingly accessible (Economy, 2012). Now, it is important to clarify that just because a device, or a thing, is connected to the internet, it is not actually part of the Internet of Things world. Indeed, devices connected to a website that specifically stores data in a cloud for a user