What it is
Wireless Sensor Solution
Feature
- Scalable:
- Simple - Reduces the complexity during installation by eliminating the need for wire.
- Affordable:
- Faster Deployment - No electrician or IT expert is needed from the customer. No intervention is needed from Koidra. Growers can deploy each sensor on the field themselves in less than 5 minutes.
- Low maintenance:
- Long-range - CAT6 Cable has a range of 100 meters. Fiber has a range of up to 400 meters, and LoRaWAN has a range of up to 10,000 meters.
✅ Easy to deploy with very little programming
✅ Nodes and gateways are pre-programmed for mainstream devices
✅ No cable required - Typically, access from sensors to MCU and MCU to Server requires a lengthy amount of wires. This adds cost to the material (CAT6, Network Switch, Conduit) and installation costs. Having a direct connection to the sensor through the use of a gateway and nodes eliminates the need for cabling.
✅ No control panel required - Only a single gateway and 1 node per cluster of sensors are needed.
✅ Avoid issues with cable and hardware installation.
✅ Battery life for sensor nodes up to 10 years
Hardware Architecture
Strategy
- The separation between node and sensor allows for:
- Maintain sensor agnostic solution, allowing the customer to pick and place any sensors on their greenhouse.
- Nodes are typically much cheaper than the sensor itself, if there was an issue at the node, only the node needs to be replaced; the same sensor can be used, potentially lowering the maintenance cost.
- A conventional wired sensor can be converted to a wireless sensor through the node.
- Each sensor communicates with the node through Modbus RTU (RS485) 2 Wire protocol.
- The Modbus RTU protocol allows for multiple sensors to be connected to the same node.
- The list of preferred sensors with the node can be seen here.
- The nodes can also accommodate 2 analog sensors (typically Temp/Humidity) if needed.
- The node is equipped with a solar panel and built-in battery which can operate for up to 10 years continuously.
- A single gateway can serve up to 1,000 nodes.
- The gateway is connected to a local network and IoT Hub can interact with the Gateway to extract sensor data or control actuators at the nodes.
| Type | Brand | Price |
|---|---|---|
TCPWiFi | Koidra | $415.00 |
TCPWiFiLTE | Koidra LTE | $625.00 |
Accessories | Battery | $739.00 |
Accessories | Solar Panel | $210.00 |
| Tags | Brand | Price |
|---|---|---|
0-10 V4-20 mARS485RS232 | Koidra | $250.00 |
I2C | Dragino | $80.00 |
SDI 12 | Koidra SDI-12 | $250.00 |
Sensor Installation
Scan:
Gateway:
- Use Krop Manager App to Scan Gateway QR Code
- IoT Hub automatically adds the gateway to the Krop Manager Interface
Sensor nodes:
- Use Krop Manager App to Scan sensor nodes
- IoT Hub automatically adds sensor nodes to Krop Manager Interface
Place
- Use Krop Manager to name and choose the sensor location
Monitor
- Sensor metrics can be added instantaneously to Krop Manager
- Users can directly interact with the measured metric
| Type | Brand | Part Number | Price | Qualification | Description | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
PAR | Apogee | SQ-618-SS | $612.00 | - Frequently tested in published journals.
- High accuracy and reliability.
- Plug and play (no wire splicing is required).
- Great technical support from Apogee. | To determine how much light received by the plants through sunlight or artificial lighting. This determine the level of activity estimated for the plant. | Must |
Air TemperatureHumidity | Hygrovue 10 | EE08 | $451.00 | - Apogee recommended sensors.
- The sensor is frequently tested in published journals.
- High accuracy (+-0.02C) and reliability (up to 2 years warranty).
- Great technical support from Apogee. | To measure the temperature and humidity around the plant. Determine the strategy required for heating and venting of the greenhouse. Paired with the leaf temperature sensor, VPD information from the plant can be acquired to estimate the stomata conductance of the plant. | Must |
Net Radiation | Kippen Zonen | NR Lite2 | $1,995.00 | - Relatively affordable price.
- No issue in stock shortage.
- Frequently tested in published journals.
- High accuracy and reliability. | Estimate the net radiation absorbed by the plant. Estimate the quantity of water lost through evaporation, transpiration, and respiration. Ensure plant are receiving the optimum amount of water. | Valuable |
CO2 | Comet | T5440 | $510.00 | - Low power consumption.
- High resolution (+- 50 ppm)
- Affordable price. | Must Have (only for CO2 injected GH) - To optimize the required amount of CO2 required by the GH through CO2 injection.
Valuable (for non CO2 injected GH) Vent the greenhouse if CO2 is depleting due to respiration at night. | MustValuable |
Leaf Temperature | Apogee | SI-411-SS | $795.00 | - High accuracy (0.03C).
- Frequently tested in published journals.
Plug and play (no wire splicing is required).
- Great technical support from Apogee. | Along with the temp and humidity sensor, the sensor measurement can be used to estimate the VPD of the plant. Adjust heating and venting strategy based on the VPD of the plant. | Must |
ECSoil TemperaturepHSoil Moisture | Meter | Teros 12 | $535.00 | - Frequently tested in published journals.
| Nice to Have (if no other methods of irrigation control is used). Measure EC, WC, and pH to determine irrigation frequency, flow rate, and time. | Nice to Have |
Leaf Temperature | FLIR | AX-8 | $1,000.00 | - Frequently tested in published journals.
- Affordable price.
| Determine the temperature distribution on the plants. Determine optimum vent and heating strategy. Along with the temp and humidity sensor, the sensor measurement can be used to estimate the VPD. | Valuable |
Air Temperature | Multi-Tech | $188.67 | - Thermocouple-based temperature sensor
- Can avoid the high complexity of accurate temperature measurement due to removing the need to use an aspirator. | Measure temperature with high accuracy with the absence of an aspirator.
User Guide | Valuable | |
Depth Camera | Intel | D435 | $350.00 | - Frequently tested in published journals.
- High accuracy and resolution.
- Great technical support from supplier and forums.
- Affordable price. | Used to estimate growth parameters (leaf area index) in the digital twin model. Improves the accuracy of the autopilot AI model when paired with crop registration data. | Valuable |
Why it matters
Installation of wired sensors has been one of the main issues for the delay in the deployment of our product where additional sensors are typically required.
Current issues:
- The high cost of the industrial control panel and its components (RevPi and its modules), wirings (CAT6, Fiber, and Shielded Cable), and other auxiliary components (Network Switch, PoE, Conduits).
- The need to outsource an electrician for the installation of the additional sensors and control panels adds cost and delay to the project.
- The installation process of the industrial control panel and sensor typically takes weeks.
- When a problem with installation arises, troubleshooting typically takes weeks due to the availability of the electrician or onsite IT expert. Troubleshooting may require a scheduled production shutdown which causes further delays in product deployment.
- The customer prefers to have IoT Suite deployed whenever new sensors (recommended by us) are installed instead of only having the metrics available from their legacy system.
TTN Issue:
- The Wireless Gateway needs to be connected to the The Things Network (TTN). Using TTN allows for wireless node integration and management. It functions as a Router, Broker and Handler:
- Router - A microservice that receives messages from the gateway and finds a Broker to forward the message to.
- Broker - A microservice that identifies the device, deduplicates traffic and forwards the packet to the Handler where the application is registered.
- Handler - A microservice that encrypts and decrypts the payload and publishes it to message brokers to be used by applications.
The disadvantage of using TTN is the need of internet connectivity to the TTN (which may result to data privacy risk). To overcome this, a private LoRa server needs to be built for the gateway.
