[NNagain] the real state of "smart agriculture"?

[Rohan M]

Hi All,

I am the Head of IT and Engineering for Flavorite, one of the largest
hydroponic glasshouse producers in the southern hemisphere with ~100ha
under glass. We predominantly focus on tomatoes, capsicums, cucumbers and
blueberries (the latter are not glasshouse grown). Glasshouse production is
typically 60% more water efficient than conventional cropping, or said
another way, it uses 1/3 of the water of conventional cropping.

We have several different environments that span large distances and use a
myriad of different technologies to support them.

In the glasshouses our biggest challenge is getting a signal through a
glass, a metal frame, and thick foliage which is >90% water. Foliage is
typically very dense and layered which creates a perfect sink for the
majority of signals.  (eg
https://investgippsland.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Flavorite-2-e1574123141523-756x350.jpg
)

Glasshouse environments:
In the glasshouse we have long spans (varies but up to 400m/1312ft) of
centre paths that are up to 4m across and concreted (eg
https://www.atophort.com/files/News/202110/tomatoes-in-greenhouse.jpg )

The typical temperatures in the glasshouses ranges from about 20C (68F) to
45C (113F) - more in direct sun during summer, with high humidity at times,
this is a barrier for a lot of devices, as it will push a processor idling
at 50C across the 95C threshold and cause it to crash.

Primary communication there is via wifi, we often use 3 unifi points (Flex
HD/U6 mesh) to cover the centre path, but we are trialling the unifi Mesh
Pro AC points as they have shown to cover larger areas. Wifi (or any
signal) access down rows more than about 5m off the centre path generally
is poor, but with points up high enough we have enough to keep the fresnel
zones clear around the APs. One problem here is that we have to mount the
APs on steel uprights, which may or may not have hydronic heating tubes
nearby.

Wireless communication for moisture sensing is done by proprietary systems,
but they typically use LoraWan, with a gateway to the main network. These
have poor propagation past 50m in these environments due to the wavelengths
and the foliage, so sometimes do not register correctly.

Even though there is a 5g mobile repeater nearby (~1km away), getting
reception on any mobile network in a glasshouse is generally nigh
impossible.

Warehouse/Packing environments:
Warehouse/Packing environments have a large amount of industrial equipment
for grading, packing, weighing and sorting fruit for delivery and
logistics. These environments typically have a lot of metal on the general
work floor which reflects or grounds signals. The walls and ceiling are
made of aluminum alloy which sandwiches insulation foam (as the whole area
is temperature controlled), there is heavy cement reinforced with rebar
fire walls between major sections, and a cement/concrete floor. The whole
structure acts as a Faraday's cage, so there are no signals going outside,
and inside, as mentioned, there is a lot of industrial equipment.

Size of these environments approximates the same as glasshouses - 600m x
300m typically.

In this environment we have approximately 60-80 wifi devices, a lot of
people who use "wi-fi calling" on mobile devices. 5g signal propagation in
such areas is non-existent, especially in rural areas. Boosters have been
tried, and failed, many times, with calls dropping out regularly.

Getting any signal propagation across the environment is a challenge.
Typically how we handle this is by ceiling mounted APs, but we find that
without AP based SQM these units experience bufferbloat, which causes calls
to drop out, or pause. The typical farmer mentality in these instances is
to put in a bigger AP, but this has not solved the problem (even with the
enormous stadium type units). The next stage here is to try more APs in
strategic locations.

It should be noted that in some such environments there are multiple very
large, 16kva (or above) pumps which have large magnetic fields despite
isolation etc. The way we've managed that is by having more density of
points in those areas, which improves things but doesn't solve them.

Blueberry fields:
Blueberry fields are similar to glasshouses, plants grow up to 1.7m
(5ft6in) and have dense foliage, similar layout to inside of a glasshouse,
however larger areas (500m/1640ft square is typical) with varying degrees
of elevation depending on the site. Getting a signal here is also a
challenge. So far we have deployed Unifi Mesh Pro AC units at the top of
treated pine poles around 2M up, three of these units allow long distance
wifi down the main paths (circa 350-400m range each), and approximately
10m/32ft into the blueberry rows.

Typical applications here are tablets and phones for voip. Density of
client devices is much lower than the other environments, with 20 clients
typically per field at any time.


In summary - 4g/5g in these environments is of limited use due to lack of
ability to foster signal propagation and the fact that these locations are
rural, which means infrastructure typically is poor in the area.

Cheers
Rohan M

On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 11:44 PM Dave Taht <dave.taht at gmail.com> wrote:

> (I am hoping others on this list with real-world AG experience can
> chime in? I enjoy realworld stories about present solutions and pain
> points[2])
>
> I have often been dubious of the 5g hope to dominate any major
> component of a smart ag architecture except perhaps FWA, (where
> starlink is poised and people also want to run fiber) to give it a
> good run for the money- 5g chips are too big, too hard to power, and
> too complex, and come with a monthly billing model and other
> centralized requirements that make organic evolution and solid support
> in remote environments dicy and expensive.
>
> I freely concede that I may be wrong, that with sufficient subsidies,
> we will end up hanging the equivalent of a cellphone off of every
> suitably large piece of gear and ship all the data up to the cloud,
> rather than pre-process locally. Certainly the benefits of gps and
> drones are being shown every day, along with satellite weather and
> other forms of satellite analysis. [1]
>
> But the 5g sensor market? No. Nowadays smart sensors are easily
> constructed out of wifi devices such as these which cost 5 dollars or
> less:
>
>
> https://www.amazon.com/DORHEA-Development-Microcontroller-NodeMCU-32S-ESP-WROOM-32/dp/B086MJGFVV/ref=asc_df_B086MJGFVV/
>
> And the more meshy LoRA stuff now has much better range (4 miles), at
> low complexity and power also.
>
> then there are things like amazon sidewalk:
> https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/b?ie=UTF8&node=21328123011
>
> And airtags.
>
> [1] On the other hand rigorous analysis of the food we produce has
> recently discovered a marked decline in the percentage of nutritious
> minerals over the past 100 years. Please see:
>
> https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09637486.2021.1981831
>
> How smart is that?
>
> [2] Massive subsidy and diversion of river resources to the water
> hungry california almond industry during the last 7 years of drought
> led to the cancellation of the salmon fishing season last year.
>
> You should hear some of the invective that I used to hear aimed at
> "the f-ing vegetarians" along the docks I frequent in half moon bay.
> That I used to hear, anyway, The docks are eerily silent, the workers
> at other jobs, the boats not going out for anything except crab and
> squid.
>
> How smart is that? The California water table is a disaster, too. I
> vastly prefer salmon to almonds personally....
>
> I guess a meta point is easily gathering tactical data is one thing,
> sharing it sanely another, deciding on how to use it strategically,
> another.
>
> --
> :( My old R&D campus is up for sale: https://tinyurl.com/yurtlab
> Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.bufferbloat.net/pipermail/nnagain/attachments/20231114/071e1cd4/attachment-0001.html>