Tecnologias e protocolos de comunicação para redes de sensores sem fio aplicados à cenários agrícolas

Abstract

Agriculture is an important sector of the Brazilian and world economy, and like other sectors, it demands the use of technologies. However, what are perceived are technological barriers, mainly with regard to network infrastructure, so that agricultural automation is even more intense. Based on these challenges and proposing to minimize them, this project aims to evaluate communication technologies and protocols for wireless sensor networks (WSN) appropriate for machine­to­machine (M2M) communication in different scenarios for automation of agricultural activities. Through bibliographic research, the characteristics of the main WSN technologies used in IoT (Internet of Things) solutions were described, evaluating important variables to the characteristics of these applications, seeking to solve common problems, mainly to applications in agricultural scenarios, where the variable extension of the areas can require greater communication range, in addition to the inherent absence of power supply. Of the technologies studied, four proved to be applicable to agricultural scenarios: LoRa/LoRaWAN, ZigBee, SigFox and WiFi(ah), however, of these two were listed as study objects: ZigBee and LoRa. Test scenarios were determined considering bibliographic studies, covering the West Mesoregion of Paraná. From the selection of technologies and the determination of test scenarios, the topologies were assembled and the tests were carried out on soybean and later corn crops. Through the tests the results were established, these in turn point out the LoRa/LoRaWAN technology as the ideal one for scenarios that require greater reach and have a higher incidence of blockage by vegetation, especially perceived by the non­functioning of the ZigBee in the corn culture scenarios. ZigBee in turn is a good option for situations where the transmission distance is short and with no or little physical blockage of the transmission.