Monitoring and Artificial Intelligence Tools for Smart Agriculture
- Principal Investigator: Dr Sónia Semedo
- Country of Implementation: Cape Verde
- Project Amount: US$ 50,000.00 (US Dollar Fifty thousand only)
- Grant Award Number: AFS-9957569475
Goal of the Project
The main goal of the project is the use of Internet of Thing and Artificial Intelligence solutions suitable for Cape Verde to increase the production level that allows mitigation and increased resilience in the face of climate change.
Objectives
The specific objectives of the study are to:
- Develop a wireless sensor network to monitor soil, weather conditions and water availability;
- Develop a drone for crop mapping.
- Create a database for AI training and evaluation.
- Implement a pilot system.
These objectives are aligned with two of the four priority areas of Agriculture and Food Systems, Availability and Stability. The project is developing a farm management system to perform automatic irrigation and drone mapping of crops. It will also conduct training and knowledge exchange through capacity building of students and farmers in the rural community drone controller and smart agriculture system.
Key activities
- Project inception meeting
- Project in debt literature review documenting specifications for IoT and AI models; documentation about drone and wireless sensor network specifications
- Identify with the community partner pilot land for mapping and project implementation.
- Develop a wireless sensor network to monitor soil, weather, and water.
- Build a drone for crop mapping.
Key Achievements
The key projects achievements identified during the review of the progress report are as follows:
- Identification of the 3 plots of land where the pilot project will be implemented, (14.955380554321751, -23.51010696300595) with a total area of 4000 m2 for the implementation of the pilot.
- In-depth literature review. In our literature review and identification of trends in the use of IoT and Artificial Intelligence models in smart agriculture.
- Successfully tested the system that monitors weather parameters (wind speed, air temperature and humidity, precipitation, wind direction), soil parameters (soil moisture and temperature).
- 3D printing of the components and mounting of the weather station,
- Development of the soil monitoring system prototype and electronic valve actuator; and
- Setting up a prototype in the laboratory.
Next Steps
Future activities will involve creation of the application for integrating sensor data, preparation of the field for installation of the pilot (construction of the tank and adaptation of the electronic valve); data collection for the creation of AI models; training of students and farmers in drone piloting and operation of smart agriculture system; and dissemination of results. Since the design of the pilot was defined together with the farmers by adding minor adaptations to the existing drip irrigation system it is possible for other farmers to adopt the technology allowing for scale up the product.