LEVERAGING INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT) AND SMART SENSORS FOR ADVANCEMENTS IN PRECISION AGRICULTURE

Abstract

The developed mechanism of the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart sensors allows improving precision farming by increasing the efficiency of the resources usage and, consequently, overall productivity. Allowing farmers to track data in real-time (soil moisture, weather conditions, and crop health), the IoT system offers valuable insights to make a real change and maximize farming efforts. In this paper, the author will consider how IoT and smart sensors can be used in precision agriculture and how those two tools can be utilized to optimize irrigation, to improve pest management, and to monitor crops. Such research, using case studies and the examination of existing IoT applications, reveals some of the most apparent gains positive influences, i.e., a better harvest, less resource use, and improved sustainability. The paper further develops the incorporation of machine learning algorithms to analyse and process the sensor in order to perform predictive analysis of pest management, irrigation, and disease control applications. The results obtained demonstrate the great effectiveness in efficiency improvement and costs reduction justifying the necessity to further implement the IoT technologies in agriculture. The paper ends with the discussion of challenges (access to data, connectivity, and scalability) and the suggestion of the directions that the field should be researched further.

Keywords: machine learning, Internet of Things, precision agriculture, smart sensors, resource optimization, predictive analytics, crop yield.