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Farm Monitoring & Precision Farming
Overview
Farm monitoring and precision farming are farm management concepts that uses sensors, data from external systems, such as weather reports, and network communciation to tailor farming operations to the specific conditions of each field. Farmers generate data via sensors and analyze the information to evaluate current practices and make improvements for greater efficiency and effectiveness. There are a variety of smart farming applications including crop observation, agriculture vehicle Tracking, irrigation management, livestock management, and storage monitoring.
Applicable Industries
- Other
Applicable Functions
- Maintenance
Market Size
The precision farming market was valued at USD 4.42 billion in 2017 and is projected to reach USD 9.53 billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 13.38% during the forecast period.
Source: Markets and Markets
Technology Viewpoint
What technologies are integrated on Precision Farming?
GPS and GIS technologies into daily farm work. But also crop sensors, aerial and/or satellite imagery.
Case Studies.
Case Study
Intelligent Farming with ThingWorx Analytics
Z Farms was facing three challenges: costly irrigation systems with water as a limited resource, narrow optimal ranges of soil moisture for growth with difficult maintenance and farm operators could not simply turn on irrigation systems like a faucet.
Case Study
Greenhouse Intelligent Monitoring and Control Solution
Farming Orchids is the most successful form of precision farming in Taiwan, and also the most exported flower. Orchids need a specific temperature and humidity conditions to grow and bloom, and its flowering time may not be in line with market demands, so the price collapses when there is overproduction. Therefore, some farmers began to import automated greenhouse control systems for breeding and forcing, which not only improves quality, but also effectively controls the production period and yield to ensure revenue. In 2012, an orchid farmer built a Forcing Greenhouse of about 200 pings (approximately 661 Square Meters) in Tainan, Taiwan. The system integrator adopted Advantech’s APAX-5000 series programmable automation controllers to build the control platform, coupled with Advantech WebAccess HMI/SCADA software, to achieve cloud monitoring. The staff of the orchid field can monitor important data anytime via smart phone, iPad, and other handheld devices, and control the growth and flowering conditions. System requirements: In the past, most environmental control systems of orchid greenhouses in Taiwan used PLCs (Programmable Logic Controller) with poorscalability and control, and could not be connected to the Internet formonitoring from the cloud. For advanced database analysis and networking capability, the PC platform must be adopted. Therefore, PAC Systems (Programmable Automation Controller) with both PLC programming capabilities andPC functions is a better choice.The environmental control of the Orchid greenhouse switches on and off devices like fan, shade net, cooling/heat pump, liquid flow control, water-cooling wall etc. It is controlled by a control panel of electric controllers, and is driven by a motor, to adjust the greenhouse temperature, humidity, and other environmental conditions to the set parameters.
Case Study
Freight Farms: Innovative Agriculture through the IoT
Freight Farms’ goal was to create a connected farming environment that was simple to set-up, highly responsive, easy to scale, and would offer a path to future features and services - from day-to-day operations, to support, to growing optimizations, connecting their farms delivers an even greater experience to their farmers. After internal constraints for the hours of support required to build, integrate and maintain their own IoT solution, Freight Farms began looking at and evaluating IoT partners they could trust.