دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی کاربردهای اینترنت اشیا برای کشاورزی - IEEE 2018

Introduction

The history of agriculture starts at least 22,000 years ago when mankind learned to collect wild grains as food. Various crops have been cultivated as earlier as 9500 BC in Levant according to archaeological discoveries (Hillman, 1996; Walsh, 2009). Over tens of thousands of years since then, significant innovations have been made from time to time to increase the agricultural yield and reduce the heavy human labor needed. However, the demand for more foods from the increasing population will never get satisfied. It is predicted that the world’s population will reach 9.7 billion by 2050, which is about 33% more than today (un.org, 2015). Consequently, to keep pace with such population growth, the global production of food has to increase at least 70% to feed the world. Meanwhile, only a small portion of earth’s surface is available for agriculture uses, due to various limitations, including temperature, climate, topography, soil quality, and technologies. Agricultural land use is also shaped by political and economic factors, such as land tenure patterns, environmental regulations, and population density (learner.org, 2016). In fact, the total agricultural land used to produce food has been decreasing for the last few decades. In 2013, total agricultural land used to produce food was around 18.6 million square miles, which covers 37.73% of the world’s land area. In comparison, in 1991, these numbers were 19.5 million and 39.47%. So, humanity is facing a daunting challenge of how to feed more people with less land, as shown in Figures 18.1 and 18.2 (WorldBank, 2016).

Conclusion

Agriculture is the basis of human society. Moreover, as Masanobu Fukuoka said, “The ultimate goal of agriculture is not just growing crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings” (Fukuoka, 2009). Fortunately, advancing of technologies, especially the combination of the Internet of things and precise agriculture, is paving the road for reaching the goal. Human now is on the cusp of the second green revolution, which is largely built on the IoT and related technologies. IoT-based PA promises to make the farm of the future more productive and efficient with less labor work needed. It is grounded on the use of data to form more efficient and effective farming practices and drive associated environmental and social benefits. The chapter has presented many related technologies developed to serve this purpose, for example, CWSI, NDVI, RTK approaches and advanced sensors. These technologies and associated applications enable farmers to treat crops and animals more precisely. Future implications of data collected through these technologies also allow farmers to make more strategic and effective decisions to increase productivity with fewer environmental impacts. In conclusion, IoT technologies will take center stage on the farm of the future (Sarni et al., 2016). It is predicted that 75 million IoT devices will be used for agricultural purposes by 2020, and the smart agriculture market is expected to reach $18.45 billion in 2022 (Mittal, 2016).