The Fourth Industrial Revolution “Industry 4.0” brought the development of the Internet.
A powerful communication tool capable to cause a positive impact in as many industries as it is involved. Following this, as a consequence of the continuous research and development in technology, the Internet of Things made its appearance in the scene, revolutionizing and bursting the market. Although, the main favored of the use of the new trends of technology are those who historically had occupied a privileged position in terms of economic status, development, and growth. Therefore, nowadays in countries such as Ecuador, there are farmers who still do not have the opportunity to use and enjoy this technology in their daily activities simply because the knowledge and development of technology have not yet affected them.
With this factual situation in mind, this research applied “Secondary Data Collection Method”. In this study the author sought to identify, process, summarize and simplify useful information related to the application of the IoT in agriculture. In fact, there is vast information regarding the application of different experiments with successful results. In the first place, the objective was to identify the basic common problems that farmers experiment during the production processes, regardless the specific conditions of the country or the area where they are farming, so the smart system to be proposed can actually be applied everywhere. As a result, three main flaws were identified: irrigation problems, meteorological disasters, and pests’
threats.
After studying, and understanding the current situation of the Ecuadorian agriculture, the country where the IoT systems were proposed, the method performed in the development of this study, was a thorough reading and investigation of the problems related to agriculture
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around the world. Subsequently, how people around the world were approaching and solving those problems by the use of technology.
The main purpose of this research was to identify simple but effective systems of IoT, tested by others that can be emulated in other places. The next step was to “disarm” the components of the system and define them in a simple and common language that any person with or without technical knowledge is able to understand. Finally, to explain, in the same way, the operation and application process, and finally, the positive results to be obtained.
There are two main reasons why this methodology was applied. First, information accessibility. There are tons of information available regarding the Internet of Thing. In fact, this topic has become trendy for the last 10 years, many people around the world have been researching and developing technology and information. It is not difficult to find journals, conference papers, and books of enlightened people talking about this subject. Once again, thanks to the Internet, information is accessible, one only needs to know where to find it and spread it. Second, successful previous experiences.
The experiments selected for this study were already applied and tested by their authors.
Thus, far from discovering or developing new technologies, this study sought to gather necessary data in order to learn from previous experiences and emulate successful cases in which farmers, through the use of the Internet of Things, overcame obstacles in their agricultural processes, or simply improved them, taking into account the Ecuadorian reality.
That is why, this research has selected specific cases, learned from their experience, and proposed solutions.
Secondary Data Collection Method is widely recognized and used in academic research papers worldwide. Thus, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, presented a guideline called “FAO Fisheries Technical Paper” with the aim to help those who
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design routine data collection programs, were amply developed data collection methods (FAO, 1999). In the same way, UNICEF supports this method in their study “Overview: Data Collection and Analysis Methods in Impact Evaluation” where is stayed that well-chosen and implemented methods for data collecting, are indispensable for all types of evaluation (Peersman, 2014).
3.2. Data Collection
The data and information collected for this research were sensibly selected, after studying a big amount of related material, and once the main objective was previously identified:
irrigation problems, meteorological disasters, and pest’s threats. In order to maintain high standards of research validity, the criteria to select the secondary data was the reliability of the source, currency of the information, depth of analysis, technical contribution to the main objectives, and the development of the research. All the information used in this research was taken from journals and papers from databases supported by university’s libraries worldwide;
governmental institutions, and international non-profit organizations. This information can be confirmed in the Reference section.
3.3. Data Analysis
The main purpose of the data collection was to identify proper IoT application systems which can be used by Ecuadorian farmers in order to improve their agriculture processes. For achieving this aim the data analysis had to follow certain steps to get valuable results. First, to identify the problems to be fixed through the application of the IoT. Second, to research and find other cases where people had similar problems and applied any kind of technology to combat their situation. Third, to understand the IoT system and adapt it to the Ecuadorian
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characteristics; to define every single component of the IoT system in order to make it understandable to any person with or without technical knowledge; to explain in not only a simple way but also complete and sufficient the operation process of the proposed IoT system.
Finally, to enumerate the benefits of the proper application of the proposed technological solutions.
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4.1. Experiment 1: Smart Irrigation System
The following information is a result of the research and analysis made by the author and the application of the acquired information taken mainly from previous experiments contained in the papers: “Automatic IoT Based Plant Monitoring and Watering System using Raspberry Pi” (Anusha & Mahadevaswamy, 2018); and, “An efficient employment of internet of multimedia things in smart and future agriculture” (AlZu’bi, Hawashin, Mujahed, Jararweh,
& Gupta, 2019).
What is watering irrigation?
According to the Irrigation Association, a membership organization for water management companies and professionals in agriculture (Rochester, 2017), irrigation is the intentional and controlled application of water for sustained plant growth and production optimization purposes. Together with this term, the smart irrigation is an upgraded process by the application of the Internet of Things in order to generate an efficient procedure which improves the outcome occupying fewer resources.
Proposed Smart Irrigation System
As a result of this research, the proposed application of the Internet of Things is a Smart Irrigation System where a group of moisture sensors distributed along with temperature and humidity sensors on the field to be irrigated, collect the environment and soil conditions, translated as data, allowing the system to efficiently distribute through pipes the specific amount of water needed on the field. The irrigation process must be able to be adapted depending on the needs of different crops. three