Internet of Things as a Means to Improve Agricultural Sustainability

The paper presents a technological platform that favours the introduction of sustainable processes in agriculture. The platform is based on an extensive use of Wireless Sensor Networks, where low power nodes are combined with multimedia devices to integrate meteorological measurements with high definition pictures. Two different solutions are discussed: a short range, multi hop architecture and its long range, single hop variation. Experimental results demonstrate the performance of the proposed solutions, which appears particularly suitable to continuously and pervasively monitor vineyards, favouring a measurable reduction in the use of pesticides.