The growing global demand for food and the environmental impact caused by agriculture have made this activity increasingly dependent on electronics, information technology, and telecommunications technologies. In Colombia, agriculture is of great importance not only as a commercial activity, but also as a source of food and employment. However, the concept of smart agriculture has not been widely applied in this country, resulting in the high production of various types of crops due to the planting of large areas of land, rather than optimization of the processes involved in the activity. Due to its technical characteristics and the radio spectrum considered in its deployment, 5G can be seen as one of the technologies that could generate the greatest benefits for the Colombian agricultural sector, especially in the most remote rural areas, which currently lack mobile network coverage. This article provides an overview of the current 5G technology landscape in Colombia and presents examples of possible 5G/IoT applications that could be developed in Colombian fields. The results show that 5G could facilitate the implementation of the smart farm in Colombia, improving current production and efficiency. It is useful when designing 5G implementation plans and strategies, since it categorizes crops by regions and products. This is based on budget availability, population density, and regional development plans, among others.

Spain is Europe’s leading exporter of tomatoes harvested in greenhouses. The production of tomatoes should be kept and increased, supported by precision agriculture to meet food and commercial demand. The wireless sensor network (WSN) has demonstrated to be a tool to provide farmers with useful information on the state of their plantations due to its practical deployment. However, in order to measure its deployment within a crop, it is necessary to know the communication coverage of the nodes that make up the network. The multipath propagation of radio waves between the transceivers of the WSN nodes inside a greenhouse is degraded and attenuated by the intricate complex of stems, branches, leaf twigs, and fruits, all randomly oriented, that block the line of sight, consequently generating a signal power loss as the distance increases. Although the COST235 (European Cooperation in Science and Technology - COST), ITU-R (International Telecommunications Union—Radiocommunication Sector), FITU-R (Fitted ITU-R), and Weisbberger models provide an explanation of the radio wave propagation in the presence of vegetation in the 2.4 GHz ICM band, some significant discrepancies were found when they are applied to field tests with tomato greenhouses. In this paper, a novel method is proposed for determining an empirical model of radio wave attenuation for vegetation in the 2.4 GHz band, which includes the vegetation height as a parameter in addition to the distance between transceivers of WNS nodes. The empirical attenuation model was obtained applying regularized regressions with a multiparametric equation using experimental signal RSSI measurements achieved by our own RSSI measurement system for our field tests in four plantations. The evaluation parameters gave 0.948 for R2, 0.946 for R2 Adj considering 5th grade polynomial (20 parameters), and 0.942 for R2, and 0.940 for R2 Adj when a reduction of parameters was applied using the cross validation (15 parameters). These results verify the rationality and reliability of the empirical model. Finally, the model was validated considering experimental data from other plantations, reaching similar results to our proposed model.

The production of crops in greenhouses will ensure the demand for food for the world’s population in the coming decades. Precision agriculture is an important tool for this purpose, supported among other things, by the technology of wireless sensor networks (WSN) in the monitoring of agronomic parameters. Therefore, prior planning of the deployment of WSN nodes is relevant because their coverage decreases when the radio waves are attenuated by the foliage of the plantation. In that sense, the method proposed in this study applies Deep Learning to develop an empirical model of radio wave attenuation when it crosses vegetation that includes height and distance between the transceivers of the WSN nodes. The model quality is expressed via the parameters cross-validation, R² of 0.966, while its generalized error is 0.920 verifying the reliability of the empirical model.

The deployment of the 5G mobile network is currently booming, offering commercially available services that improve network performance metrics by minimizing network latency in countries such as the USA, China, and Korea. However, many countries around the world are still in the pilot phase promoted and regulated by government agencies. This is the case in Colombia, where the assignment of the first 5G band is planned for the third quarter of 2021. By analyzing the results of the pilot phase and the roadmap of the Colombian Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies (MinTIC), we can determine the main issues, which contribute to the deployment of 5G mobile technology as well as the plans to achieve a 5G stand-alone network from 4G networks. This is applicable to other countries in Latin America and the world. Then, our objective is to synthesize and share the most important concepts of 5G mobile technology such as the MIMO (multiple input/multiple output) antenna, RAN (Radio Access Network), C-RAN (Centralised-RAN), and frequency bands, and evaluate the current stage of its introduction in Colombia.

The deployment of 5G around the world continues to progress at a rapid pace, especially in North America and Asia. Its advantages and efficiency as a data transmission network have been widely demonstrated in different fields such as agriculture, education, health, and surveillance. However, this process does not have the same dynamics in Latin America, specifically in Colombia. The country is currently implementing actions aimed at facilitating the deployment of this technology in the short term, including pilot tests for the use of the radio spectrum, spectrum auctions, the planning of future auctions, and the review of spectrum caps. The results of this review allow us to conclude that despite the forecasts and the intentions of the Colombian government and mobile communication service operators, 5G in standalone mode will not be commercially available in Colombia before the end of 2023. The main failures in its deployment are related to the lack of available spectrum to support the ultrahigh-reliability and low-latency, enhanced mobile broadband, and massive machine-type communications scenarios, as well as the delay in the auction processes for its assignment.

There is a need to integrate advancements in biomedical, information, and communication technologies with care processes within the framework of the inpatient safety program to support effective risk management of adverse events occurring in the hospital environment and to improve inpatient safety. In this respect, this work presents the development of a software platform using the Scrum methodology and the integrated technology of the Internet of Things for monitoring and managing inpatient safety. A modular solution is developed under a hexagonal architecture, using PHP as the backend language through the Laravel framework. A MySQL database was used for the data layer, and Vue.js was used for the user interface. This work implemented an RFID-based nurse call system using Internet of Things (IoT) concepts. The system enables nurses to respond to each inpatient within a given time limit and without the inpatient or a family member having to approach the nursing station. The system also provides reports and indicators that help evaluate the quality of inpatient care and helps to take measures to improve inpatient safety during care. In addition, diet management is integrated to reduce the occurrence of adverse events. A LoRa and Wi-Fi-based IoT network was implemented using a LoRa transceiver and the ESP32 MCU, chosen for its low power consumption, low cost, and wide availability. Bidirectional communication between hardware and software is handled through an MQTT Broker. The system integrates temperature and humidity sensors and smoke sensors, among others.