New technologies have the potential to transform agriculture and to reduce environmental impact through a green revolution. Internet of Things (IoT)-based application development platforms have the potential to run farm management tools capable of monitoring real-time events when integrated into interactive innovation models for fertirrigation. Their capabilities must extend to flexible reconfiguration of programmed actions. IoT platforms require complex smart decision-making systems based on data-analysis and data mining of big data sets. In this paper, the advantages are demonstrated of a powerful tool that applies real-time decisions from data such as variable rate irrigation, and selected parameters from field and weather conditions. The field parameters, the index vegetation (estimated using aerial images), and the irrigation events, such as flow level, pressure level, and wind speed, are periodically sampled. Data is processed in a decision-making system based on learning prediction rules in conjunction with the Drools rule engine. The multimedia platform can be remotely controlled, and offers a smart farming open data network with shared restriction levels for information exchange oriented to farmers, the fertilizer provider, and agricultural technicians that should provide the farmer with added value in the form of better decision making or more efficient exploitation operations and management.

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), Internet of things (IoT) and aerial mapping are nowadays being used very much in agriculture. The challenge of joining those technologies requires a new and smart wireless network topology for devices communication. Problems like scalability and manageability are important challenges when there are many devices. This paper presents the design of a smart IoT communication system manager used as a low cost irrigation controller. The proposal is a powerful irrigation tool that uses real time data such as the variable rate irrigation and some parameters taken from the field. The field parameters, the index vegetation (estimated using aerial images) and the irrigation events, such as flow level, pressure level or wind speed, are periodically sampled. Data is processed in a smart cloud service based on the Drools Guvnor (a Business Rules Manager). The developed multimedia platform can be controlled remotely by a mobile phone. Finally, we measured the bandwidth consumed when the system is sending different kinds of commands and data.

Improving the sustainability in agriculture is nowadays an important challenge. The automation of irrigation processes via low-cost sensors can to spread technological advances in a sector very influenced by economical costs. This article presents an auto-calibrated pH sensor able to detect and adjust the imbalances in the pH levels of the nutrient solution used in hydroponic agriculture. The sensor is composed by a pH probe and a set of micropumps that sequentially pour the different liquid solutions to maintain the sensor calibration and the water samples from the channels that contain the nutrient solution. To implement our architecture, we use an auto-calibrated pH sensor connected to a wireless node. Several nodes compose our wireless sensor networks (WSN) to control our greenhouse. The sensors periodically measure the pH level of each hydroponic support and send the information to a data base (DB) which stores and analyzes the data to warn farmers about the measures. The data can then be accessed through a user-friendly, web-based interface that can be accessed through the Internet by using desktop or mobile devices. This paper also shows the design and test bench for both the auto-calibrated pH sensor and the wireless network to check their correct operation.

Intelligent Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) on emergency rescue is widely used to detect injured mountaineers in inaccessible areas. These systems should satisfied several features. On the one hand, it is important to know the georeference of the injured mountaineers. It is also important to have real-time images of the situation and the area where people have been hilly. For this reasons, in this paper, we present the development of a UAV integrated within a wireless ad hoc network and a communication protocol able to transfer between several UAV’s and Smartphones working with Android OS. This paper also shows how to extend the concept of ad hoc network on Smartphones to extend wireless coverage for emergency situations in critical areas without GSM cellular coverage. After developing our system, we have focused our effort on demonstrating the correct operation of our UAV and its network performance when the system is used to track within a zone. Experimental results show the big potential of this kind of networks working on hostile terrain such as big mountains, ravines and river canyons without GSM signal communication.

In order to use intelligent video sensing systems, three main features should be satisfied. HD video transmission to provide enough video quality for image treatment, a wireless ad hoc network to intelligent locate and focus the issue to be sensed and enough available bandwidth to provide HD video quality. This paper presents a communication protocol designed and deployed to provide HD video transfers between several mobile devices working with Android and Linux OS. Experimental results using AR Drones with Wi-Fi forming an ad hoc network demonstrate the big potential of this kind of networks in mobile devices. The use of AR Drones will revolution the field of HD video communications over air for intelligent video sensing because they have many sensors to be controlled autonomously using GPS or manually using remote control.