School of Technology
Department of Computer Science
Master Thesis Project 30p, Spring 2013
Wireless Farming: a mobile and Wireless Sensor Network based application to create farm field
monitoring and plant protection for sustainable crop production and poverty reduction
By
Elias Edo Dube
Supervisor:
Bo Peterson
Examiner:
Carl Magnus Olsson
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Contact information Author: Elias Edo Dube
E-mail: [email protected]
Supervisors: Bo Peterson
E-mail: [email protected]
Malmö University, Department of Computer Science.
Examiner: Carl Magnus Olsson
E-mail: carl.magnus.olsson @mah.se
Malmö University, Department of Computer Science.
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Abstract
There is a remarkable growth in the field of Information Communication Technology
(ICT) in Developing Countries (DCs). Telecommunication is one of the areas where ICT
is recording an ongoing rapid change. Mobile phones are becoming pervasive in daily
scenario; and among the beneficiaries of this are farmers. Farmers are using mobile
phones in executing their farming business and daily life. At the same time, Wireless
Sensor Networks (WSNs) are also showing a result in developed part of our world.
WSNs potential in sensing various environmental condition, their affordability and
applicability motivated conducting of this master thesis. Therefore, the objective of
conducting this master thesis is to investigate and identify how the use of mobile phones
in conjunction with WSN enable farmers in Ethiopia monitor and control their farm field.
We use firsthand qualitative data we gathered during our field work in Ethiopia to design
our proposed prototype. Functional requirements and system design guideless are
obtained from observation we make and interviews we carry out on irrigation based
farmers around town of Meki in region of Oromia. We use our prototype to demonstrate
and evaluate how irrigation based farmers benefit from existence of such system.
Keywords: wireless sensor networks, mobile farming, internet of things, agriculture,
agricultural information system, irrigation farming, precision farming.
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Popular science summary
Agriculture is one the important sector that accounts for growth in the developing
world. Many developing countries are now focusing on agriculture led development. Yet
the sector has its own challenges. The impressive progress of Information
Communication Technology (ICT) in the Developing World and extent of Wireless
Sensor Networks (WSNs) applicability indicates the possibility of applying this
technology in the context of developing countries. In this master’s thesis we investigate
and identify how the use of mobile phones in conjunction with WSN enables farmers in
Ethiopia monitor and controls their farm field. We carry out an intensive literary review
to learn the state of the art and identify similar works done before. Through a field work
we conduct in Ethiopia we identify functional requirements to build a prototype. We
demonstrate using our mobile and web based prototypes how the use of WSN can enable
farmers in Ethiopia monitor their farm field using their mobile phones.
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Acknowledgement
Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Bo Peterson for
the motivating support of my master thesis project and for the useful academic insights
and guidance he provided to throughout the course of this thesis project. Besides my
supervisor, I would like to thank my examiner Carl Magnus Olsson for his useful
feedback and important comments that helped improve the thesis work. My sincere
thanks go to Annabella Loconsolle for the patient follow up of my thesis work and for
offering me useful comments and feedback on all the deliverables.
I thank Irrigation based farmers from Meki, Ethiopia, specially - Abreham, Tesfalidet
Aron, Tony Burka, Dadi Jara and others who were willing to participate in the interviews
I conducted and for cooperating to show their farm field which enabled me conducted an
observation and gather visual data.
Last but not least I would like to thank the SPIDER (The Swedish Program for ICT in
Developing Regions) and its coordinators at Malmö University for offering me a travel
grant which enabled me carry out a field work in Ethiopia and use a firsthand data in my
research.
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Table of contents
1 Introduction......................................................................................................................... 12
1.1 Approach for solution .............................................................................................. 13
1.2 Motivation ............................................................................................................... 14
1.3 Project aim ............................................................................................................... 14
1.4 Research Question ................................................................................................... 14
2 Literature Review ............................................................................................................... 15
2.1 Use of WSN in agriculture ...................................................................................... 16
2.1.1 Irrigation management ........................................................................................ 17
2.1.2 Precision agriculture ............................................................................................ 17
2.2 WSN and communication technologies ................................................................... 19
2.3 Mobile phone use among farmers ............................................................................ 20
2.3.1 Market price ........................................................................................................ 20
2.3.2 Communication medium ..................................................................................... 20
3 Research Methodology ....................................................................................................... 21
3.1 Case study ................................................................................................................ 21
3.1.1 Planning and conducting interview ..................................................................... 21
3.1.2 Participant observation ........................................................................................ 22
3.2 Literature review ...................................................................................................... 22
3.3 Design and creation ................................................................................................. 22
4 Context of the field work .................................................................................................... 23
4.1 Agricultural management by farmers in Ethiopia .................................................... 23
4.1.1 The East Showa zone .......................................................................................... 23
4.1.2 Type of irrigation farming ................................................................................... 24
4.2 Interview and interview analysis ............................................................................. 28
4.2.1 Interview method ................................................................................................. 28
4.2.2 Farm field monitoring methods used by farmers ................................................ 29
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4.2.3 Summary ............................................................................................................. 33
5 Design and prototype .......................................................................................................... 34
5.1 Design guideline ...................................................................................................... 34
5.2 Design process ......................................................................................................... 35
5.3 System architecture overview .................................................................................. 37
5.3.1 Hardware Interface .............................................................................................. 37
5.3.2 Software Interface ............................................................................................... 39
5.4 Designing the prototype ........................................................................................... 39
5.4.1 Designing the data sensing and collecting system .............................................. 39
5.4.2 Data logging unit design...................................................................................... 41
5.4.3 Data access system design ................................................................................... 42
6 Prototype Evaluation .......................................................................................................... 45
6.1 Evaluation of Functional requirements .................................................................... 45
6.1.1 Data request and verification evaluation ............................................................. 45
6.1.2 Data read and send evaluation ............................................................................. 46
6.1.3 Data saving evaluation ........................................................................................ 46
7 Discussion and Conclusion ................................................................................................. 48
7.1 Limitations ............................................................................................................... 48
7.2 Answering the Research Questions ......................................................................... 48
7.3 Contribution ............................................................................................................. 50
7.4 Future work .............................................................................................................. 51
7.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 52
Appendix I: Interview Questions .......................................................................................... 53
1. Interview: Agricultural management and farm field monitoring by farmers in Ethiopia
53
Appendix II: use cases ............................................................................................................ 54
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References ............................................................................................................................... 58
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List of Figures
FIGURE 1: WSN SENSOR NODES GENERAL STRUCTURE .............................................................................................. 16
FIGURE 2: EAST SHOWA ZONE, OROMIA, ETHIOPIA .................................................................................................. 23
FIGURE 3: A FIELD OF HARICOT BEANS AND ONION ................................................................................................... 25
FIGURE 4: FARMERS VISITING A TOMATO FIELD ........................................................................................................ 25
FIGURE 5: WATER PUMPING MOTORS ................................................................................................................... 27
FIGURE 6: MOTORCYCLES ARE USED BY FARMERS TO ACCESS A FARM FIELD ................................................................... 31
FIGURE 7: A PICTURE SHOWING A FARMER OUT IN THE FIELD AND AN IRRIGATION CANAL ................................................. 32
FIGURE 8: A SOIL THAT LOOKS DRY ON THE SURFACE BUT WET INSIDE ........................................................................... 32
FIGURE 9: DESIGN PROCESS STEPS ........................................................................................................................ 35
FIGURE 10: OVERVIEW OF ARCHITECTURE OF THE PROPOSED SYSTEM .......................................................................... 37
FIGURE 11: SENSING UNIT .................................................................................................................................. 39
FIGURE 12: SENSORS ......................................................................................................................................... 40
FIGURE 13: DATA LOGGING UNIT ARCHITECTURE ..................................................................................................... 41
FIGURE 14: ARDUINO UNO BOARD AND ARDUINO ETHERNET SHIELD .......................................................................... 41
FIGURE 15: DATA ACCESS UNIT ARCHITECTURE ........................................................................................................ 42
FIGURE 16: ACCESSING SENSOR DATA USING THE WEB APP ........................................................................................ 43
FIGURE 17: WIRELESS FARMING SYSTEM MENU AND A SAMPLE SCREENSHOT ................................................................ 44
FIGURE 18: A GRAPHICAL VIEW OF SENSOR READING FOR ONE DAY ............................................................................. 44
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List of Tables
TABLE 1:SIMILAR WSN PROJECTS......................................................................................................................... 18
TABLE 2: CONNECTIVITY OPTIONS ......................................................................................................................... 20
TABLE 3: OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH METHODS .......................................................................................................... 21
TABLE 4: BASIC STATISTICS FOR EAST SHOWA ZONE ................................................................................................. 24
TABLE 5: LANDS POTENTIALLY SUITABLE FOR IRRIGATION IN ETHIOPIA .......................................................................... 26
TABLE 6: IRRIGATION WATER SOURCES, IRRIGATION EQUIPMENT USED AND METHODS OF WATER DELIVERY OR ABSTRACTION IN
THE SELECTED DISTRICT OF EAST SHOA ZONE, JULY 2012. ................................................................................ 27
TABLE 7: INFORMATION NEED OF FARMERS ............................................................................................................ 33
TABLE 8: SYSTEM QUALITY ATTRIBUTES .................................................................................................................. 34
TABLE 9: FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS .................................................................................................................. 36
TABLE 10: USE CASE 1: WEATHER DATA................................................................................................................ 54
TABLE 11: USE CASE 2: SOIL MOISTURE DATA ........................................................................................................ 54
TABLE 12: USE CASE 3: SOIL TEMPERATURE DATA ................................................................................................... 55
TABLE 13: USE CASE 4: FARM TEMPERATURE DATA ................................................................................................. 56
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List of acronyms
AEZ Agro-ecological Zone
API Application Programming Interface
BS Base Station
DC Developing Countries
DS Decision Support
ES Expert System
FDRE Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
GDP Gross Domestic Product
HCD Human-Centered Design
ICT Information Communication Technology
LIVES Livestock and Irrigation Value-chains for Ethiopian Smallholders
MDG Millennium Development Goal
MEMS Micro Electro-mechanical System
OPDEDEZ Office of Planning and Economic Development of East Shewa Zone
PA Precision Agriculture
RQ Research Question
WFS Wireless Farming System
WSN Wireless Sensor Network
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1 Introduction
Agriculture is one of the important sectors for the economies of African countries. It is
a highly relied upon sector for non-oil exporting African countries. The sector contributes
for nearly 30% of the continents Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 70% of the
continents population depends on agriculture to sustain their life [1]. Facts from the
World Bank about ‘Agriculture in Africa’ indicate that [2] - the agricultural sector has the
potential to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), reduce poverty,
increase rate of employment and increase GDP in sub-Saharan Africa.
Agriculture is a major source of income for Ethiopia and the country’s economy
highly depend on it. It accounts for half of the country’s total GDP and more than 80% of
the country’s population depends on it [3]. The government of Ethiopia and other key
stakeholders involved in agricultural work consider agriculture to be the main source of
income, and a key role player for the country’s socio-economic development [4].
However, despite the fact that agriculture accounts to be a source of income and a
supply for Ethiopia’s population livelihood, periodic drought and other environmental
disasters common happenings many farmers compelled to face. Therefore, to overcome
challenges in the sector various policies and strategies have been designed and
implemented. These efforts have been made to enable farmers improve their productivity
and further to facilitate a preventive methods to avoid risk. For instance, one of the key
approaches that are being used by various stakeholders in agriculture to improve the
production and productivity of the farmers is having Agricultural Information Systems
and make use of Remote Sensing (RS) technologies.
In this master thesis project we plan to conduct qualitative research using a case study,
literature review, and design and creation to investigate and identify how the use of
mobile phones with existing Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technologies be applied
for agricultural purposes in developing countries taking the case of middle-scale
irrigation-based farmers in Ethiopia. Our research tries to understand and demonstrate
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how such application can benefit primarily farmers and other agricultural stakeholders –
both Governmental Organizations (GOs) and/or International Developmental
Organizations (IDOs).
1.1 Approach for solution
Nowadays, there are different approaches for solutions that are being used to improve
crop production. One of the methods that are showing a good effect in improving crop
production and effective resource utilization is Precision Agriculture (PA) [5]. Using PA
enables farmers know what amount of fertilizers, seed and other chemicals to use for
their land and specific condition. This makes PA an effective way for utilization of
resources and improve production outcome.
Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) in agriculture is showing progress [9][10][11][12].
WSNs provide possibilities to sense and gather information of various environmental and
crop conditions. However, it is a challenge for a farmer to know real-time data of a farm
field and incorporate personalized weather information at same time using mobile
phones. Therefore, in this master thesis project we plan to investigate this existing
challenge in the field of agriculture by researching how WSNs can be used to monitor a
farm and how mobile phones can serve to access the information.
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1.2 Motivation
1.3 Project aim
1.4 Research Question
There is a rapid growth of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in the
Developing Countries. Telecommunication technologies are becoming more available
than ever. Mobile phones have become pervasive. Improvements that are happening in
the telecommunication field are showing encouraging results. Farmers are among the
beneficiaries of this opportunity. Farmers use mobile phones to run their business and
stay connected. Almost every household is acquiring a mobile phone. This has created
opportunities for farmers to do their job more efficiently and access market information
[7][8].
However, there is a lack of research and applications done in the field of Agriculture
which could shows using of mobile phones to enable farmers monitor their farm and
allow them access existing services - like weather information. Studies
[6][3][30][31][32][35][37][41][42][43] show that WSN to be a good opportunity for
agricultural development and for researching the field.
Therefore, the growing use of mobile phone in Developing Countries and the
affordability, energy efficiency, and ease of use of WSN technologies creates an
opportunity to investigate how to enable farmers get real-time agricultural data and
weather information on their mobile phones. In addition to this, it creates a chance to
show how use of agricultural information can enable better farming decision
[36][37][38][39][40][33].
The aim of conducting this project is to investigate and identify how the use of mobile
phones in conjunction with WSN enables farmers in Ethiopia monitor and control their
farm field.
RQ1: What are the common methods (or ways) used by farmers to monitor a farm field?
RQ2: How can Wireless Sensor Networks in combination with mobile phone enable
farmers monitor a farm field?
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2 Literature Review Literature review is vital to have an in depth knowledge of one’s intended research area
and to learn more about subject matter. Oates[13] describes the importance of carry out a
literary review in order to identify research area, review state of the art and learn the area
that needs further investigation or contribution. We conduct the literature review in order
to identify the research gap and formulate a refined research goal. Therefore, the purpose
of this literature review is to know more about the study area of the topic which we are
going to research and to learn from previous works done by other researchers in the area.
In addition to this we expect to gain a better insight of our own research question in
relation to what have already been done.
We conducted web searching to obtain the literatures and assessed them in our literature
review. We retrieve several articles from different online sources. Among the online
sources we obtained the literatures are: IEEE1, Google Scholar2 and ScienceDirect3 via
Malmö University’s proxy. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
provides access to a wide range of literatures published on more than 100 peer-reviewed
journals in the field of electrical and electronics engineering and computer science.
Google Scholar allows conducting academic related searches using Google’s search
engine. Physical or digital copies of articles that are available online or in libraries can be
searched using Google Scholar. Malmö University’s library allows signing in to Google
Scholar using the library’s proxy which allows students access to a wide range of articles
for free. The other main source we used to look up for articles is ScienceDirect. We used
ScienceDirect to search for articles related to our topic from its full-text scientific
database which offers access to journal articles and book chapters from more than 2,500
journals and almost 20,000 books.
We used different keywords related to our topic, research question and goal when
searching for the literatures. We first review abstracts of articles carefully and keep track
1 http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.proxy.mah.se/Xplore/home.jsp 2 http://scholar.google.se.proxy.mah.se/ 3 http://www.sciencedirect.com.proxy.mah.se/
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of each article accordingly. We also use bibliographies and references from articles to
find more related articles to our topic. We finally review and assessed the articles we
obtained. Of course, the process of our literature review was continuous throughout our
project.
2.1 Use of WSN in agriculture
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) emerged from advancements in the areas of micro-
electro-mechanical system (MEMS) technology, wireless communication, and digital
electronics. WSNs devices are small in size, low cost, and require low power to work.
The basic structure of WSN sensor nodes as identified by Chebbi et al. [50] shown below
(see figure 1).
Figure 1: WSN sensor nodes general structure
According to Chebbi et al. [50] there are four main components that make up a sensor
node. The parts are namely: a sensing unit, a processing unit, a transmission unit and a
power unit. Depending on the type of application a sensor node may have additional parts
such as a position finding system, mobilize and a power generator. Sensing unit usually
takes the burden of sensing and gathering sensor data and then passes the data to the
processing unit. The processing unit receives the sensed data and processes it according
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to a set procedure or program. A transmission unit connects the sensor not with a
network. The power unit supplies power required to run a sensor node.
Akylidiz et al. [14] identified five areas of application of WSN. These are for military
applications, environmental applications, health applications, home applications and
other commercial applications in offices and buildings. Other studies [10][11][12]
conducted show that WSN technologies can be used in the area of agriculture as well.
There is a growing demand for technological application in the developing world [27]
and expansion of telecommunication infrastructure is growing rapidly [7][8]. The rapid
growth in the field of telecommunication in the developing world is making farmer get
access to Information and Communication Technological (ICT) Infrastructures. The
potential of applicability of WSNs in the agricultural sector couple with the increasing
growth of ICT in developing countries create an opportunity to explore the benefit of
such application for farmers.
Below we discus some of the areas the use of WSN tried or studied in the field of
agriculture.
2.1.1 Irrigation management
One of the promising areas that WSN could be used is in the field of agriculture is
irrigation farming. Irrigation farming is a way of farming that uses various water sources
to farm. The utilization of available water sources can be scarce, since this farming
method allows farmers to farm throughout the year. Even though this method allows
farmers to farm more than once a year, which raises profitability of farmers, over using of
available water sources can lead to shortage of water. In this regard, WSN can applied for
effective water management along with crop and soil condition monitoring
[36][37][38][39][40][33].
2.1.2 Precision agriculture
One of the application area of WSN Precision Agriculture (PA) (see Table 1:Similar
WSN projects) [32] [35] [37] [41]. A precision agriculture method is where the amount of
inputs (like seed, fertilizer, pesticides, water etc.) given to a specific farm field is
important to control and monitor the condition of the farm to determine the amount of the
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crop output. Shah et al. and Coates et al. [15][16] describe sensor network based
precision irrigation and problems and challenges of agricultural water management and
how to improve water use effectiveness. The application of WSN in precision agriculture
is one possible way to determine and control the inputs by monitoring the farm field for
an improved and efficient precision irrigation [6][3][30][31] [42][43].
The table below (Table 1:Similar WSN projects) contains some projects and researches
that used WSN components to improve different aspects in agriculture. The table shows
list of projects and researches, their description, sensor used, crops involved in the study
or project and devices used to access the information. We carried out a thorough
investigation of these projects and researches in order to get an idea of what has been
done and what is lacking. Table 1:Similar WSN projects
Name Description Research
Prototyp
e
Actual
Product
Sensors used Crops Devices Refer
ence
An Enegy-
efficient WSN for
farming
Using WSN for PA in an
energy efficient way
PC [9]
Application of
WSNs for
Greenhouse
parameter control
in PA
Use of programmable
system on chip tech. to
control the parameter of
greenhouse for PA
ZigBee sensor
network(temprat
ure, pressure,
light,
humidity,CO2,
wind speed, and
wind direction)
PC [10]
WSN in
Agriculture: for
potato farming
Application of WSN to
improve potato crop
production
Water depth,
soil water
tension
Potato NA [11]
WSN
application in
Agriculture
The future of farming and
how it would be improved
by using WSN
NA NA NA [12]
Agro-sense Automated fruit harvesting • Soil pH Fruits Auto [19]
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• Soil Moisture
• Electrical
conductivity
• Soil
temperature
mation
SoilNet A Zigbee based soil
moisture sensor
network
Soil moisture NA PC [20]
COMMONSense Using WSN data for
effective water
management
VMC/VWC
with soil
moisture sensor,
soil-matrix
potential(SMP)
with water mark
sensor,
temperature
sensor
NA PC [21]
Wireless Farming Using WSN to monitor a
farm field and assist farmer
make a decision
Soil moisture
Soil temperature
Humidity
temprature
Onion,
Tomato
PC,
Mobile
2.2 WSN and communication technologies
A WSN is composed of several sensor nodes that have the capacity of sensing and
gathering data. The sensor nodes can sense varying types of parameters and send it to a
central gateway [14] [50].
WSN sensor and processing boards have the capability of working with various
communication technologies. WSN can be linked to external servers or services both
with wires or wirelessly (see Table 2: Connectivity options). Amongst others some of
connection options could be using Ethernet connection, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or GSM-
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GPRS. In our case we plan to use GSM connectivity option both to link the sensor
network to external database and/or to communicate with farmers mobile devices. Table 2: Connectivity options
Communication ways Communication distance coverage
Bluetooth 30-100m
GPS-GPRS Network carrier coverage (km)
Wifi 100-300m
2.3 Mobile phone use among farmers
2.3.1 Market price
2.3.2 Communication medium
One amongst the routine daily activities of farmers is to keep track of their various
businesses by assigning responsible person who could look over for them. So in order to
keep themselves updates farmers call to person who is acting on behalf of them. Again
the use of mobiles is high among farmers to communicate with their families and
colleagues when they are not around [17][18].
Mobiles are widely used among farmers in developing countries to access market.
Farmers make calls or send SMS to merchants at central markets in order to learn market
prices and negotiate prices. The existence of mobile network coverage in most rural parts
is allowing farmer to communicate with each other and others which makes them more
informed about market conditions than before. The farmers who are ones used to be taken
advantage of by merchants because of their lack of information, are now in turn taking
advantage of the existence of helpful infrastructures like mobile and internet usage
[17][18][30].
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3 Research Methodology
3.1 Case study
3.1.1 Planning and conducting interview
We use Oate’s [13] book for planning and conducting interviews. Semi-structured
interviews are planned and conducted on six farmers, one extension worker, and three
other stakeholders. This facilitated to obtain data by enabling our interviewees to speak
Oate’s [13] describe the process of conducting a research as a process which starts
from setting a research question and all the steps that occur throughout the sequence of
approaching and answering the question raised. According to Oate’s [13] a research
process initially starts with set of questions to research and follows with series of
activities which take the initial question to an answer or set of answers in order to present
an evidence and conclusions to an academic audience and thereby show the creation of
new knowledge or contribution.
In our qualitative research approach we used three methods – case study, literature
review, and design and creation - to investigate the research area and answer our two
research questions we raised. Table 3: Overview of research methods gives an overview of
the research methods employed in answering each of our research questions throughout
the process of our research activities. Table 3: Overview of research methods
Research question Literature review Case study Design and creation
RQ1
RQ2
Case study is important research method to conduct an observational study to learn
about an activity or a project and collect data [13]. In order to investigate about our
instances we used farmers in East-showa zone in Ethiopia to conduct our case study. In
order to generate data we used both interview and observation. This gave us an input to
learn in detail about the activities and processes of farming and the farmers.
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with more details on the issues we raise and allow them to raise their own issues that they
think are relevant [13] (see Appendix I: Interview Questions). The interviews are recorded
in audio formats and kept for analysis.
3.1.2 Participant observation
As part of our data gathering process we conducted participant observation. We
observed various activities of farmers in East-showa zone, Ethiopia near a town called
Meki. We gathered data by taking notes and taking pictures of the participants and the
environment in addition to interviews we conducted.
3.2 Literature review
3.3 Design and creation
Literature review is vital to have an in depth knowledge of one’s intended research area
and to learn more about subject matter (see 2 Literature Review). We conduct the
literature review in order to identify the research gap and formulate a refined research
goal. Therefore, the purpose of this literature review is to know more about the study area
of the topic which we are going to research and to learn from previous works done by
other researchers in the area. In addition to this we expect to gain a better insight of our
own research question in relation to what have already been done.
In this study we use the Design and Creation method to design a prototype for
monitoring a farm field using mobile phones and wireless sensor networks. The Design
and Creation approach is useful to create a new IT product [13][22]. After identifying
requirements from the data obtain from interviews and observation, the next process we
carry out is to design a prototype that can be evaluated. Since this study is not concerned
solely about the creation of a prototype, we plan also to make our work a factor that
contributes to existing knowledge. Therefore, the contribution to knowledge shall be
shown using the data gain from literature review and case study. The prototype will be
used to demonstrate this.
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4 Context of the field work
4.1 Agricultural management by farmers in Ethiopia
4.1.1 The East Showa zone
The East Showa zone is located in central Oromia region, Ethiopia [25]. The Central
Eastern Rift valley crosses the zone. Majority of the lakes of the region are found in East
Showa. The zone records annual temperature of 15 to 27 and a mean annual rainfall of
410 to 820mm. The main soil types of East showa zone are Andosols(36.47%),
Vertisols(16.12%), Rendizome and Phaeozomes(22.94%) and Fluvisols(2.05%)[25][45].
Agro-ecological Zone (AEZ) type of the region are mainly Dry Weina dega and Moist
Weina Dega[44].
Figure 2: East showa zone, Oromia, Ethiopia
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Table 4: Basic statistics for East Showa Zone
Source: Profile of East Showa Zone [43]
4.1.2 Type of irrigation farming
Huib et al.[26] identifies the crops grown in the region to be vegetables (eg. onion,
tomatoes, haricot beans) and flowers. We also observed this to be true from observation
we had during our field work. The cultivation of these crops depends on irrigation water
[28][29]. Flowers that are grown in greenhouses are estimated to use between 2000 and
4000 m3 water per ha; while vegetables grown in open field require an estimation of 500-
800mm ha-1 (5000-8000 m3 ha-1) of irrigation water.
Selected Districts
Total Bora Dugda Lume
Rain fed crops 27805 54175 46030 128010
Irrigated crops 7292 5965 - 13257
Communal /opening graze 1911 3964 44654 50529
Private grazing - 7361 - 7361
Forests/woodlots - 3172 4200 7372
Plantation - 239 - 239
Land covered
by irrigated
vegetables
(ha.)
Onion
6819
3008
1745
14894
Tomato 1688
Hot pepper 97
Cabbage 597
Eggplant -
Green pea 477
Land covered
by irrigated
fruits (ha.)
Papaya
365
88
Watermelon -
Mango 6
Orange -
Banana - 4
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Figure 3: A field of haricot beans and onion
Figure 4: Farmers visiting a tomato field
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Lakes and rivers located in Rift Valley Basin are major source of irrigation water for
crops developed in the region. In the East Show zone, Dugda woreda - where we carried
out our field work – the main water sources used for irrigation farming are Lake Ziway,
Meki River and Ground Water. Farmers said sometimes it is difficult to identify between
where the good water comes from and where source of harmful water is. For instance
they told us that at some of the sites the water is salty and that affects badly the crop
growth and soil fertility.
Table 5: lands potentially suitable for irrigation in Ethiopia
No River Basin Area ('000ha) 1 Abbay 5800 2 Awash 406 3 Baro-Akobo 1100 4 Genale-Dawa 660 5 Mereb 38 6 Omo-Ghibe 348 7 Rift Valley 80 8 Tekeae 1383 9 Wabi-Shebele 335 Total 10150
Source: FDRE Ministry of Water and Energy[24]
Motor pumps are irrigation equipments mostly used by farmers. The motor pumps are
used to pump water from available source of water near to the plantation. Most farmers
access the Lake Zeway water that crosses their field through the major irrigation canal in
the district. Some farmers use river Meki water. While some other use water from their
own well.
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Figure 5: Water pumping motors
Table 6: Irrigation water sources, irrigation equipment used and methods of water delivery or
abstraction in the selected district of East Shoa Zone, July 2012.
Characteristics Lume Bora Dugda
Irrigation water sources
Koka Dam( 1150 ha) (3 PAS)
River 1186 ha in 3 PAS
Lake Zeway 5914 ha in 16 PAS
River 476 ha ( 11 pAs) Private owned shallow wells 120 ha (7 PAs)
River 1242 ha in 8 Pas
private owned shallow wells 120 ha (7 PAs) Private owned shallow
wells 3319 ha 13 PAs Irrigation equipment used Motor pumps( 1745 ha) Motor pumps( 7184
ha) Drip irrigation set Motor pumps
Water delivery /abstraction Gravity Pumping (motor
pump) Pumping (motor pump)
Pumping (motor pump) Gravity Gravity Irrigation potential (ha) 2075.13 9009 14050 Actual irrigated area (ha) 1744.75 7184 9523
Source: Profile of East Shoa Zone [43]
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4.2 Interview and interview analysis
This section presents the result of a field work carried over a period of 20 days in
Ethiopia around the city of Meki (Dugda, Oromia)[44][45]. The objective of conducting
the interview is to identify requirements of the farmer. Carrying out the interview allows
learning ways farmers used to monitor and control their farm field and common
challenges they experience. This will be used as guidance while identifying requirements
(see Table 9: Functional requirements) and making design decisions.
In total we had Ten participants in our interview which of this - eight of them are
middle scale irrigation based farmers, one is an extension worker and one is agricultural
officer. The farmer participants had a varying level of experience in their farming
business. Some are new to the farming business while some have been in the farming
business for a while and have large scale farms. After we found the contact of participant
of our interview we arrange time and place to interview them. After each interview we
also conduct a field visit of each farmer to have a look on the crops they are growing and
learn the way they access information about their farm and what kind of ways they use to
monitor the crop and their farm.
4.2.1 Interview method
Oates [13] describes interview as a way of data generation technique by getting
information from the interviewee. An interview needs to be planned before proceeding to
conduct one. A well planned and conducted interview is a key to gaining significant
information about issues we want to get information. The IDEO HCD toolkit [22]
provides also important techniques for conducting interview for Human-Centered Design.
The toolkit provides advises on how to prepare interview questions and get prepared for
the interview. It is recommended to make interview questions less abstract and use
examples.
4.2.1.1 Defining, planning and conducting interview
We use Oates’ [13] guideline to define and plan our interview questions. Interviews
are designed to generate data. The defined interviews are semi-structured interview. This
means that all interview questions are not pre-determined before actually conducting the
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interview. This provides a chance to capture relevant issues that may arise while
conducting the actual interview.
We use IDEO HCD toolkit [22] as a guide when conducting our interview. In the
process of conducting the interview we followed the guide provided by IDEO how to find
people for our interview putting into consideration the level of understanding both we
have about the topic we are investigating and the knowledge and understanding our
interviews have about the technologies we are using. We start by acknowledging existing
knowledge of our interviewees about the topic. By creating such a knowledge base of the
topic and getting an understanding of the level of knowledge our interviews have about
the topic, we ask for questions we prepare and take note of relevant issues that arise while
conducting the interview.
4.2.2 Farm field monitoring methods used by farmers
A usual vegetable plantation has mainly the following production cycles. These are
land (or field) selection, seed preparation, seed plantation, growing the crop, gathering
crop when it is ready and putting the product on market. One full production cycle takes
three to four months of duration. During each production cycle a farmer has different
concerns and activities to achieve a good production.
During land selection process a farmer want to know whether a soil is suitable for the
desired seed type the farmer is planning to plant or not. During this process one activity
that needs to be carried out is to check whether the soil is salty or not. Farmers we
interviewed expressed they try to identify this using indigenous knowledge about the
environment. This means they rely on the information they obtain from a person who has
used that specific land or another land close to it. Usually they observe characteristics of
the land and effects noticed on plants to determine the nature of the land; that is to
determine whether soil is salty or not. However, they fail often in identifying whether a
certain soil is good or bad.
The next action a farmer takes after selecting a land suitable for the desired planting is
preparing the seed to be planted. This usually does not require a lot of effort. The only
thing that concerns is the quality of the seed chosen. The quality of a seed chosen
determines the growth potential, the production outcome, and its resistance to plant
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diseases. At the same time a seed is being prepared for plantation; the land for plantation
is plowed and gets ready for irrigation farming.
When the seed is ready for plantation, it is taken to a field prepared for the plant. From
this time onwards the farmer starts preparing irrigation schedule and close follow up and
monitoring. The farmer continuously visits the plant and checks if it needs watering or
not. A farmer also sees the weather condition and humidity of the field and decides if the
plant needs pesticides or not. With such continuous follow up and monitoring the farmer
takes care of a plantation until production is ready for the market.
The primary ways of accessing farm field is by using their motorcycle and a mobile
phone. A farmer frequently travels to different sites to checks status of crop. Having an
eye on a farm field is a significant part of farmers’ daily activities. Most of the farmers
we interviewed told us they visit their farm field at least twice a day to check the status.
Since mostly they have plantations on more than two sites, only checking status of their
field takes a lot of time, energy, and resource. Since the only way this farmers control and
monitor the condition of their farm field is by being physically present to every site they
have, they buy motorcycles. All farmers we contacted during our interview and
observation owned their own Motorcycles. Another way of getting information about a
farm is using mobile to call someone who is at a farming site to ask about status of a field
or a crop.
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Figure 6: Motorcycles are used by farmers to access a farm field
Every time a farmer visits a farm field diagnoses soil of the field, the environmental
condition and the crop status. The first thing a farmer does is to look if the farm has been
watered or not. If not, the farmer checks by looking at the soil if watering is needed or
not. Usually farmers mistakenly consider that the farm needs watering when they see a
dry soil on surface while the soil is wet 5-10cm deep. This causes over watering of the
plant. This affects the growth of the crop planted. Another observation a farmer conduct
is to look at the leaf of the plant and soil to distinguish whether the water contains
saltines or acidity (PH). And subsequently, a farmer checks air moisture and temperature,
humidity, and temperature to decide whether the farm needs fertilizers and/or pesticides.
We will show how we used this information to make our design choices in Chapter 5.
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Figure 7: A picture showing a farmer out in the field and an irrigation canal
Figure 8: A soil that looks dry on the surface but wet inside
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4.2.3 Summary
The information need of the farmers we contacted is similar. Most of the farmers we
interviewed expressed their need of information regarding soil type and crop follow up
methods. As mentioned (on section 4.2.2) above, farmers are concerned about how to
choose a good farm land suitable for seed they are planning to plant and how to prevent a
plant from a potential plant diseases. Farmers do this using their knowledge they got from
personal experiences and indigenous knowledge. Table 7 below shows farmers need of
information in order to monitor their farm field and take necessary action to prevent
plants from plant disease. Table 7: Information need of farmers
Information need Reason Action taken
Soil moisture identification To identify the need for
watering
watering
Soil pH To find out soil saltines or
acidity
Decide use of fertilizers
Air moisture and air
temperature
Risk for plant diseases Pesticides and use
fertilizers
humidity Plant disease Use preventive
pesticides
Weather condition Rain forecast Make watering and
irrigation schedule
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5 Design and prototype
5.1 Design guideline
We use guideline from IDEO Human-Centered Design approach [22] and additional
quality attributes (see Table 8: System quality attributes) of the hardware equipments we
used in our project. By involving farmer in a semi-structured and user centered interview
(see 4.2.1.1 Defining, planning and conducting interview) we have tried to learn existing
trends farmers use and their level of understanding both about their situation and
available technologies. Combining the qualitative input from the interviews conducted
and information we acquire about the state of the art (2 Literature Review), we define
quality attributes (see Table 8 below) to achieve a human-centered, feasible and usable
design. Table 8: System quality attributes
Quality attribute Description
Availability: The system shall be available to be accessed by its
users using available mobile networks in the area.
Lifetime: Installed Wireless Farming system shall last for more
than two production seasons.
Affordability: The mobile and web applications; and the wireless
sensor system all together shall be affordable for the
farmers to purchase and use.
Security: The system shall be secure enough both software and
hardware.
Usability (or desirability): The mobile and web applications shall be easy to use
and understand.
feasibility and viability The overall system shall maintain feasibility and
viability
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5.2 Design process
The overall design process goes through three main phases – Hear, Create and Deliver
- identified using the IDEO HCD toolkit [22]. These three phases served as a key in our
human-centered design process which enabled us to hear the needs and desires of farmers
involved in our research, create innovative and inclusive solutions which meets the needs
of farmer we are designing our product for, and finally enables delivering a solution that
is affordable, accessible, sustainable, secure, feasible and viable system (see Table 8:
System quality attributes). Therefore, the design solution emerges from overlap of the
human-centered design process (see Figure 9: Design process steps) we follow and the
overlap of the quality attributes we identified (see Table 8: System quality attributes).
Figure 9: Design process steps
Figure 9: Design process stepsabove shows the designs process our system. Firstly, we
start our human-centered design process with hearing from farmers to identify problems.
During this phase we dedicate most of our research time to hear from farmers what they
have to say about challenges they face. This provides a means to capture relevant
information to the identification of challenges they have regarding farm field monitoring,
management and agricultural problems they have. In order to obtain all the information
we need necessary for our design, we conduct a semi-structured interviews and carry out
observations (see 3.1 Case study and Appendix I: Interview Questions). In addition to
Create Hear Deliver Problem
Indentification
Method:
Interview
Observation
Brainstorming
Functional
requirement
Prototype
development
Prototype
evaluation
Design choice
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hearing from farmers, we also interview agricultural experts and extension workers which
provide extra information to what we already obtained from farmers.
The second phase of our design process is – Create. In this phase we use the
information we obtained in the first phase to identify functional requirements of our
proposed system. In order to achieve this in a human-centered approach we carry a
brainstorming session with farmers. During our brainstorming sessions we let farmer
discus freely what they think would be interesting design and what the proposed system
should let them do in order to monitor and manage their farm fields. We use paper
sketches, create user scenarios and paper prototypes in order to illustrate and visualize
ideas. The outcome of brainstorming sessions provides a means to define functional
requirements (see Table 9: Functional requirements) and design choices. We also take into
account information we obtained from interviews conducted during first phase of our
design process. In addition to this, we use functional requirement definition provided by
Sommerville [23] in order to get more insight on how define functional requirements.
Finally we use the results obtained from the first two phases of our design process to
deliver a solution using a prototype of our proposed system. We use the identified quality
attributes and functional requirements in the process of making the design decision of our
proposed prototype. Table 9: Functional requirements
Data.Request
Data.Request.Verification
Data.Request.Verfification.Fail
The mobile application shall let a user access a sensor
data from the Wireless Farming system
The system shall check whether the user has a verified
user (or a register user)
If a user is not a verified or authorized user, the system
shall not allow the user access the sensor data
Data.Read
The system shall read sensor data over some interval
of time and log it to a cloud service provides by
xivity.com [24]
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Data.Value.Send
The system shall send the read sensor values to the
user
Data.Value.Save While sending read sensor values to a user the system
shall also save access history to a database
5.3 System architecture overview
Our proposed system is comprised of both hardware and software components (see
Figure 10: Overview of architecture of the proposed System) below. We make our design
decision using the design choices we obtain from our brainstorming session (see Figure 9:
Design process steps) and identified quality attributes (see Table 8: System quality attributes).
Therefore, we used open source hardware and software interfaces to design our proposed
system.
Figure 10: Overview of architecture of the proposed System
5.3.1 Hardware Interface
• Micro-controller: Arduino uno board – this microcontroller is based on
ATmega328 datasheet. It has 14 digital input/output pins, 6 analog inputs, a USB
connector, a power connector and built in clock speed resonator [51].
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Summary
Microcontroller ATmega328 Operating Voltage 5V Input Voltage (recommended) 7-12V Input Voltage (limits) 6-20V Digital I/O Pins 14 (of which 6 provide PWM output) Analog Input Pins 6 DC Current per I/O Pin 40 mA DC Current for 3.3V Pin 50 mA Flash Memory 32 KB (ATmega328) of which 0.5 KB used by bootloader SRAM 2 KB (ATmega328) EEPROM 1 KB (ATmega328) Clock Speed 16 MHz
• Ethernet shield: Arduino Ethernet shield – this Ethernet shield enables to
connect and Arduino to internet using a RJ45 cable [52].
Summary
• Requires an Arduino board • Operating voltage 5V (supplied from the Arduino Board) • Ethernet Controller: W5100 with internal 16K buffer • Connection speed: 10/100Mb • Connection with Arduino on SPI port • IEEE802.3af compliant • Low output ripple and noise (100mVpp) • Input voltage range 36V to 57V • Overload and short-circuit protection • 9V Output • High efficiency DC/DC converter: typ 75% @ 50% load • 1500V isolation (input to output)
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• Sensors: Temperature sensor, photo sensor, soil moisture sensor, humidity sensor,
PH sensor
5.3.2 Software Interface
• Arduino Development software
• Xively API
• Acosm
• Android development kit
5.4 Designing the prototype
In this section we present main functionalities of the proposed system. The proposed
system performs three main functionalities. The first and foremost activity of the
proposed system is to sense and collect environmental data. Then the next process is to
log the collected data to a cloud server. The final activity in the process is to make the
logged data available for visual access. Therefore, our design of the proposed system
corresponds to these identified processes of the system.
5.4.1 Designing the data sensing and collecting system
Figure 11: Sensing unit
The data sensing unit consists of sensor nodes which are placed in a farm field to
sense and monitor different environmental conditions (see Figure 11: Sensing unit
above). The sensors monitor farm field conditions like – soil, humidity, temperature and
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weather conditions and send sensed data to base station. The specific type of necessary
sensors for our proposed system are identified using the functional requirements (see 5.2
Design process) generated and literature reviews conducted on wireless sensor networks
(see 2.2 WSN and communication technologies ).
Data is generated within some interval of time that is set or when a user sends a
request to the system. In the first case of data generation, the sensor senses the
environment and sends the data to the web application. This occurs according to a
schedule that the system uses to put itself in active or sleep mode in order to save power
and lifetime. During the second case – when a user sends a request – the system collects
sensor data and sends it back to user’s mobile. This enables a farmer to send a request to
base station to check status of farm field. A base station processes the request received
and replies to request with sensor data read. This means, for instance, if a farmer sends a
request for soil moisture statues, a BS checks the sensor reading for the corresponding
request and replies with the collected data value.
Figure 12: Sensors
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5.4.2 Data logging unit design
The data logging unit is used to send the sensed data passed to the base station (see
Figure 13: Data logging unit below). Base stations are used to process and send sensor
readings to the internet.
Figure 13: Data logging unit architecture
Data sensed using the sensors is passed to the Arduino micro-processor. Arduino then
receives the sensor data and logs it to Xively cloud server using the Xively API [46][49].
Data is logged to the server on certain interval of time that is set. The Arduino micro-
processor that serves as a data logging unit is also responsible of executing sensor
readings. This makes it serve as base station of the system. For our prototype we
programmed data to be logged every second to simplify the process of evaluating the
system at later times.
Figure 14: Arduino Uno board and Arduino Ethernet Shield
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5.4.3 Data access system design
The next step we took in our design the proposed system is to decide the way of
making the sensor data available for the user. The sensor data uploaded to the internet
using the data logging unit can be accessed from both personal computers (PCs) and
mobile phones (see Figure 15: Data access unit architecture). We considered the presentation
of sensor reading to give meaning to the user. That is current sensor reading values
should be displayed along with a graphical visualization of sensor reading. The user will
be able to view also the physical location of a farm field and other details. The sensor
reading presentation is accessible in two ways. One option to access sensor reading is by
using the web. The other option is to access sensor reading using mobile phones.
Figure 15: Data access unit architecture
5.4.3.1 Accessing data using web visualizer
The sensor readings are continually uploaded to Xively [46][49] cloud service and
made available for access from any web browser using internet. We use Xively’s API
service to feed our sensor data to channels we created on their cloud service. It is possible
to view current sensor reading value both visually and numerically. The web application
provides a graphical presentation of sensor readings over some period of time – which
can range from current time up to three months of reading history. Using the web
application a user can view geographical location of a field a sensor is located.
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Figure 16: Accessing sensor data using the web app
5.4.3.2 Accessing data using mobile application
Mobile phones have become a part of our daily activities. With the rapid growth of
telecommunication technology in developing countries [17][18][47][48], the availability
of mobile phone services and their use among farmers is growing at the same time. Our
research aims how existing WSN technologies be used in conjunction with mobile
phones. It is also our researches objective to see ways how the combination of these two
technologies could be used to enable farmers monitor and control their farm field.
As part of one our interview question (see Appendix I: Interview Questions) we ask
farmers for a type phone they have. We used the answer of this interview question to
decide the platform on which we shall develop mobile based prototype.
The figure below (Figure 17) shows a screenshot of the main menu showing the menu
items and a sensor reading. The main menu items we included in our prototype are
humidity, soil temperature, soil moisture and farm temperature data streams.
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Figure 17: Wireless Farming system menu and a sample screenshot
In the figure below (Figure 18), shows a graphical view of a sensor reading of one
day. The value on the horizontal bar shows the sensor reading while the vertical bar
represents the time span. In addition to this sensor readings are shown on basis of an
hour, four days and over 30 days. The graphical representation of the sensor readings
makes it easy to visualize current status and sensor reading history over period of time.
Figure 18: A graphical view of sensor reading for one day
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6 Prototype Evaluation In this chapter we present the evaluation of our prototype. Our evaluation takes into
account only evaluating the mobile part of the proposed system. The purpose of
evaluating the proposed prototype is to present our solution to participants and get their
feedback. The participants whom we used to evaluate our prototypes are the farmers we
used for interview. Besides getting users feedback about usability of the proposed system,
evaluating our prototype helped check whether the system fulfils the function
requirements specified (see Table 9: Functional requirements).
6.1 Evaluation of Functional requirements
6.1.1 Data request and verification evaluation
• The mobile application shall let a user access a sensor data from the Wireless
Farming system
Accessing a sensor reading using the mobile phone application is possible.
The mobile phone application (Acosm) efficiently retrieves sensor data
reading uploaded to Xively. Users are prompted to try to use it. We
observed a users have slight level of difficulty to understand accessing the
application for the first time. After a while of trial all users we checked the
product with were comfortable using the application. At the end of every
user’s evaluation we ask for their opinion.
• The system shall check whether the user has a verified user (or a register user)
The mobile application verifies and authenticates when a user tries to use
the application. A user must provide the required credentials in order to
access the system. This makes every application to be accessed only by an
authorized user. This provides a specific application to be accessed only
by a specific user that the system is created for.
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• If a user is not a verified or authorized user, the system shall not allow the user
access the sensor data
The application does not allow a user access the system unless the user
provides correct authentication information. This is important to keep the
system secured and prevent an authorized access. Therefore, in order to
access sensor reading data a user should have a registered account.
6.1.2 Data read and send evaluation
• The system shall read sensor data over some interval of time and log it to a cloud
service provides by xively.com [24]
The Arduino based system we designed is capable of reading data on a
given interval of time and uploads it to Xively’s data stream. Sensor data
is uploaded to a specific data stream using API key and feed ID of the data
stream.
• The system shall send (or upload) the read sensor values to server
The proposed system frequently reads sensor values and uploads it to
cloud. This sensor readings can be accessed using the web or from a
mobile phone application. Data is uploaded within a given time interval
defined for the system.
6.1.3 Data saving evaluation
• While sending read sensor values to a user the system shall also save access
history to a database
At this version of the prototype the system saves sensor readings on
Xively cloud service. A user can access sensor reading records up to three
months. Since one plantation season for vegetable crop lasts for three
months, it could be enough data to monitor throughout the plantation
season. However, it is important for a farmer to keep farm field
information for longer time. It helps to make decision for consequent
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plantation seasons. In order to decide on what crop type to plant next, and
identify which season and soil is best for a certain crop type, it is
important for a farmer to get access of sensor data that have been saved for
long time.
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7 Discussion and Conclusion
7.1 Limitations
The proposed system’s mobile based prototype has been evaluated with farmers. This
was conducted in order to get feedback from future users of the system (see 5.1 Design
guideline and Figure 9: Design process steps) and confirm the requirements identified have
been met in the system (see Table 9: Functional requirements ). By doing so we have are
able to get insight for future work – both to improve the system and enhance the
usability. However, ensuring the usability and functionality of the mobile part of our
proposed system’s prototype was important, more test and evaluation needs to be carries
out on the hardware part of the proposed prototype as well. The functionality of the
designed hardware prototype have not been tested and evaluated under actual
environmental conditions out in the field. This might lead to a failure if the system is
implemented without testing the hardware components of the proposed system out in the
field. Furthermore, it is the mobile phone application part of the prototype that we
evaluated. We gave higher priority for the mobile part over the web part of our
application since the main aim of our research is to investigate how mobile phones and
WSNs are used to enable farmer in Ethiopia control and monitor their farm field. The
budgets allocated to conduct the field work in Ethiopia is also of limited amount to allow
us do everything.
7.2 Answering the Research Questions
In this section we provide how we answered our research questions.
RQ1: What are the common methods (or ways) used by farmers to monitor a farm
field?
To answer this research question, we conducted a field work in Ethiopia in which
we interviewing farmers, done field observation (see section 3.1: Case study and
section 4.2: Interview and interview analysis). Then we used the interview and
observation results to learn and understand common methods farmers employ to
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monitor and manage a farm. By identifying the common ways of farm field
monitoring used by farmers and learning the parameters a farmer use to monitor a
plant, we identify user requirements and check the need for quality attributes(see
5.1Design guideline).
RQ2: How can Wireless Sensor Networks in combination with mobile phone enable
farmers monitor a farm field?
For answering this research question we used the result we obtained from the
interview we conducted. We asked the participants in our interview (middle scale
irrigation based farmer in Meki,Oromia, Ethiopia) what type of mobile phones
they use ( see Appendix 1.Interview: Agricultural management and farm field
monitoring by farmers in Ethiopia). In addition to this, we did a literature review to
examine existing mobile application development environments that work with
WSN technologies (see section 2.1Use of WSN in agriculture and section 2.3: Mobile
phone use among farmers). We used the results to answer this research question by
designing a prototype (see chapter 5Design and prototype). Our prototype shows
the possibility of managing farm field and accessing services using mobile
phones.
The data we gathered show that most of the farmers use Samsung galaxy
S2 and Iphone 4 mobile phones. There are also few farmers who have Blackberry
mobile phones. The diverse type of mobile phone usage among farmers made it
challenging to identify a platform to develop our prototype on. However, after
comparing the functional requirements we identified and technical information we
obtained from our literature review on WSN, we decided to make an Android
based application.
We used the feedbacks we received from our prototype evaluation with
farmers in Ethiopia. After each time a user evaluates our prototype, we recorded
textually users experience and level of satisfaction to examine the usability and
usefulness of our proposed system. We also prompted users if they find such a
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system to be of use to assist them in their daily activities. The results we achieved
from our assessment show that farmers think such system to be of greater help to
carry out their daily farming activities. It is in this manner we approached to
answer this research question using the feedbacks we obtained from farmers
during our prototype evaluation (see section 6 Prototype Evaluation).
7.3 Contribution
In this thesis research we have studied similar products (and researches) that existing
out in the market (see section 2 Literature Review). This enabled us to get significant
inputs to conduct our research and identifies areas that need knowledge contribution as
well.
We found most projects on WSN in agriculture to be research oriented (see Table
1:Similar WSN projects). Our literature review and field work in Ethiopia indicate lack of
research on use of mobile phones and WSNs technologies to enable middle-scale-
irrigation-based-farmer in the country monitor and control their farm field. For this
reason, we conducted a research which investigates ways of using mobile phones in
conjunction with WSNs to enable farmers in Ethiopia monitor and control a farm field.
We used functional requirements we identified from a firsthand data we obtained from
our field work and extensive literature review we conducted to address the issues we
raised and answer our research questions (see section 1.3Project aim).
Furthermore, our research motivates the possibility of carry out an extensive research
in the area of WSN and mobile phone technologies; and the role this could play on
improvement of agricultural methods in the context of developing countries.
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7.4 Future work
The research presented in this thesis indicates some more areas to exist for future
research.
Firstly, a study of how to use alarming system in a Wireless Farming System (WFS)
can be investigated. Including an alarming system in WFS involves sending a warning or
alarm to a farmer’s phone when a certain condition occurs. For this, more research needs
to be conducted to identify the parameters and learn the conditions that are severe for
plants in context of DCs.
Secondly, we believe that such a system designed for farming use requires including a
Decision Support (DS) unit. Most of the farmers who participated in our interview
expressed they use their indigenous knowledge and own experience to make decision
while using fertilizers and pesticides. This exposes crops under treated or use of more
resource than require. In short, further study that investigates a cost effective and
scientifically helpful ways on how to associate sensor data reading with professional
explanation. One way to do this is to conduct a study of designing and Expert System
(ES) which supports decision making by associating sensor readings with professional
(scientific) information.
Finally, what we see as another potential of future work is integrating existing services
in WFS. For instance, a farmer can be enabled access weather forecasts from within the
same system. This creates the condition not to leave the application alone but makes
system suitable for the farmer to make a irrigation schedule while viewing other farm
field conditions. Commodity exchange information can be also included. Therefore, it is
relevant to study available existing services and APIs that could be of significant
importance for farming.
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7.5 Conclusion
In conclusion, with a user focused design approach, our research show that mobile
phones can be used as a tool to enable farmers in DCs monitor a farm field. We have
identified the main concerns farmers have regarding carry a diagnosis of different aspects
of their farm field and following up the status of a plantation. we relied on data we
obtained from our field work and literatures we reviewed to create a context to assess to
what extent WSNs be used to monitor farm field conditions and work with existing
mobile phone platforms. We identified user requirements common among middle scale
irrigation farmers in Developing countries taking the case in East Showa zone, Ethiopia.
We used inputs we got from our field work and literature review to formulate a design
guideline and make a design decision on how to create a prototype. In addition to
learning about requirements we have evaluated our prototype with users to validate its
functionalities meet their requirements. Furthermore, we have managed to answer our
research questions. And the result of the proposed Wireless Farming System (WFS)
shows the possibility of enabling farmers in DCs monitor their farm field using their
mobile phones.
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Appendix I: Interview Questions
1. Interview: Agricultural management and farm field monitoring by farmers in Ethiopia
The objective of conducting this interview is to gather a firsthand data from farmers in
Ethiopia to learn how farmers manage and monitor their farm field. We do this to identify
system design requirements. All the information you provide will be used for the master
thesis report only.
Name:
Where you Work:
1. What are your main daily activities?
2. What type of crops do you plant?
3. How big is your farm? How much investment does it require? How is the profit
margin?
4. What are the common risks of production loss?
5. Can you briefly explain how you keep track of your farm field during the day?
6. How do you access your farm field (both physically and remotely)?
7. How do you use your mobile phone in your farming business? What type of
mobile phone do you have? Can you please show me?
8. If a sensor based application is installed to enable you monitor your farm field
using your mobile phone and internet services, would you be willing to pay for
that?
Thank you for your time!
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Appendix II: use cases
Table 10: Use Case 1: Weather data
Use Case ID 1
Use Case Name Weather data
Created by Elias
Actors Users/farmers
Description This action allows a farmer to send a weather information request to the system and gets weather condition detail
Preconditions · The user must have a functional WSNFarming system. · The user must have the WSNFarming system app on his mobile
phone. · There should be a mobile network coverage both where the
WSNFarming system is installed and at the location of the user
Postconditions The user will get a weather information detail on his mobile phone.
Normal Flow · A user logs in to the app on his phone. · Selects weather information option from the menu. · If the user has mobile network and his number is register on the
system the app will send a request for sensor data to the system · The system then reads the sensor data and also checks other weather
stations information · The system sends the sensor data to the user’s mobile phone. · The system updates access history on the database.
Alternative Flows
1. Use the web based application.
Priority Medium
Frequency of Use
Depends on the user’s preference.
Table 11: Use Case 2: Soil Moisture data
Use Case ID 2
Use Case Name
Soil moisture data
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Created by Elias
Actors Users/farmers
Description This action allows a farmer to send a soil moisture information request to the system and condition of the soil moisture level and detailed explanation of the data reading.
Preconditions · The user must have a functional WSNFarming system. · The user must have the WSNFarming system app on his mobile
phone. · There should be a mobile network coverage both where the
WSNFarming system is installed and at the location of the user
Postconditions The user will get soil moisture level with a detailed explanation of the status on his mobile phone.
Normal Flow · A user logs in to the app on his phone. · Selects ‘soil moisture’ option from the menu. · If the user has mobile network and his number is register on the
system the app will send a request for sensor data to the system · The system then reads the soil moisture data from the sensors · The system sends the sensor data to the user’s mobile phone. · The system updates access history on the database.
Alternative Flows
1. Use the web based application.
Priority High
Frequency of Use
Depends on the user’s preference.
Table 12: Use Case 3: Soil Temperature data
Use Case ID 3
Use Case Name
Soil Temperature data
Created by Elias
Actors Users/farmers
Description This action allows a farmer to send a soil temperature status request to the system and gets back the status of the soil temperature with a
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detail that explains what it means to his crop
Preconditions · The user must have a functional WSNFarming system. · The user must have the WSNFarming system app on his mobile
phone. · There should be a mobile network coverage both where the
WSNFarming system is installed and at the location of the user
Postconditions The user will get soil temperature information with detailed explanation on his mobile phone.
Normal Flow · A user logs in to the app on his phone. · Selects ‘Soil Temperature’ option from the menu. · If the user has mobile network and his number is register on the
system the app will send a request for sensor data to the system · The system then reads the soil temperature data from the soil
temperature sensors · The system sends the sensor data to the user’s mobile phone. · The system updates access history on the database.
Alternative Flows
1. Use the web based application.
Priority High
Frequency of Use
Depends on the user’s preference.
Table 13: Use Case 4: Farm temperature data
Use Case ID 4
Use Case Name Farm temperature data
Created by Elias
Actors Users/farmers
Description This action allows a farmer to send a farm temperature request to the system and gets temperature of his farm field on the moment he is requesting the information
Preconditions · The user must have a functional WSNFarming system. · The user must have the WSNFarming system app on his mobile
phone. · There should be a mobile network coverage both where the
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WSNFarming system is installed and at the location of the user
Postconditions The user will get a farm field temperature detail on his mobile phone.
Normal Flow · A user logs in to the app on his phone. · Selects ‘Farm Temperature’ option from the menu. · If the user has mobile network and his number is register on the
system the app will send a request for sensor data to the system · The system then reads the sensor data from the temperature sensors
placed in the farm field · The system sends the farm temperature sensor data to the user’s
mobile phone. · The system updates access history on the database.
Alternative Flows
1. Use the web based application.
Priority Medium
Frequency of Use
Depends on the user’s preference.
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