Abstract
Smart irrigation systems used in agriculture are becoming increasingly important due to the optimization and management of resources, especially water. Recent climate change events have caused water shortages in many areas, making it critical to improve irrigation efficiency in agriculture for sustainable agricultural production. We provide a smart irrigation method to enhance irrigation efficiency, by means of a multi-platform approach, combining a wireless sensor network (WSN) of soil moisture and a phenocam to monitor plant stress. The developed system consists of three main hardware elements: a LoRaWAN gateway that collects data from the sensor nodes and, thanks to its internet connectivity, allows the second component, a phenocam, to collect RGB and infrared photos; and, as the last component, the sensor nodes that are distributed in the field and measure the soil moisture at different positions and depths. In addition to the hardware, a large software component is part of the system, with databases, dashboards for displaying data in real-time, and analysis tools.