A Farm Sensor Network

Pavan Sikka

CSIRO, Queensland

http://www.ict.csiro.au/staff/Pavan.Sikka

Monday, 21 August 2006, 11:00am

Tutorial room 2.28

Abstract: Agriculture accounts for a significant portion of the GDP in
most developed countries. However, managing farms, particularly
large-scale extensive farming systems, is hindered by lack of data and
increasing shortage of labour. We have deployed a large heterogeneous
sensor network on a working farm to explore sensor network applications
that can address some of the issues identified above. Our network is
solar powered and has been running for over 6 months. The current
deployment consists of over 40 moisture sensors that provide soil
moisture profiles at varying depths, weight sensors to compute the
amount of food and water consumed by animals, electronic tag readers, up
to 40 sensors that can be used to track animal movement (consisting of
GPS, compass and accelerometers), and 20 sensor/actuators that can be
used to apply different stimuli (audio, vibration and mild electric
shock) to the animal. The static part of the network is designed for
24/7 operation and is linked to the Internet via a dedicated high-gain
radio link, also solar powered. The initial goals of the deployment are
to provide a testbed for sensor network research in programmability and
data handling while also being a vital tool for scientists to study
animal behavior. Our longer term aim is to create a management system
that completely transforms the way farms are managed.

Pavan Sikka has a PhD in Computer Science from the University of
Alberta, Canada, in 1994. His initial research  was in the use of  touch
for robot control. He joined the Robotics group at CSIRO in 1998 where
he worked on several large field robotic projects. Since 2004 he has
been working on applications of wireless sensor/actuator networks. For
more information, please see http://www.ict.csiro.au/staff/Pavan.Sikka.