The platform allows the deployment of a sensor network with peripheral nodes spread on the crop fields or on the environment for the monitoring of crop parameters/environmental parameters. The network architecture integrated LoRa peripheral nodes for short-medium range communication and star-center NB-IoT based for long range communication. It includes a web server and MySQL database for data storage and visualization. The network architecture is scalable to adapt to the area to monitor. The sensor nodes have been developed to be low manteinance thanks to energy harvesting system embedded on them. The platform has born to support the development of the flexible sensors fabricated in our research institute. In particular, by now, flexible wet sensor and gas sensor are in development to enable direct integration on plant.
In the context of the precision agriculture, the possibility to integrate flexible sensors directly on the crops enables a more detailed and accurated study of the crop parameters. The platform, structured in sensor nodes of few centimeters, represents a flexible architecture that integrates and enhance the localized information of these sensors, with the purpose to obtain an effective added value in terms of information obtained.