The Need Of Technology In Agriculture

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

We first need to recognize that agriculture is a science that is vital to human well being. Through continuous innovations over thousands of years, farmers have fed ever growing population with an increasing variety of produce. The Indian farmers and those who are working for their welfare need to be e-powered or have to make them use the modern technology. This has to be considered as a serious issue so as to make them face the emerging scenario of complete or partial deregulation and reduction in government protection, opening up of agricultural markets, fluctuation in agricultural environment and to exploit possible opportunities for exports. The quality of rural life can also be improved by quality information inputs as well as aware them regarding the upcoming technology which will provide them better decision making abilities.

Information technology plays a major role in facilitating the process of transformation of rural India to meet those challenges and to remove the fast growing digital devides. The rapid changes in the field of information technology make it possible to develop and disseminate required electronics services to India. The technology plays a major role in the agricultural sector. There are lots and lots of people who are unaware of the modern technology and in most of the cases some agricultural plants are been left unattended. So the use of modern technology helps them overcome these problems.

Today there are many challenges in delivering the modern technology in the agricultural sector. Some of the challenges faced are:

Lack of trained people.

Awareness regarding the upcoming technology.

Pressures on farmers from the MNC’s.

Cost.

Lack of knowledge.

Above mentioned are some of the challenges that are faced by the agricultural sectors. These challenges lead to the desires of the farmers. So in order to meet the above challenges the use of ICT in agriculture should be made in order to increase their efficiencies and effectiveness in the agricultural sector.

Most of the green houses are fully equipped with new technology. Most of them are making use of the wired technology where at times it’s dangerous. Nowadays scientists in the fields of agricultural sector are realizing the advantages of the wireless technology.

TECHNOLOGY VISION AND VIABILITY

Scientist have developed a new sensor that can alert humans to the needs of their household plants like the amount of sunlight or water required. The two pronged sensor can report on sunlight, temperature, water and fertilizer conditions by using low power Bluetooth signals to send alerts.

Dangerous conditions for plants may trigger extra warnings through the flower power app on a persons Smartphone or tablet. Flower power was something which people had a keen attention in the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show which will be coming out this year.

This technology was found by PARROT which is US based company. Parrot’s device makes keeping up with your flowerbed, or garden, easy, and without the need to read an instruction manual on each flower to do so.

Flower power is a wireless plant sensor that helps keep track of the soil around your plant and provides feedback to let you know exactly what you need to do to keep the particular plant species alive.They have a database of 6,000 plants developed by botanists, which helps them know exactly what needs to be done to keep them alive. All you need is the Flower Power, an iPhone or iPad, and Bluetooth connectivity.

Once you’ve installed the Flower Power by a plant in your garden, or a potted plant in your house, just download the app and then you can rely on Parrot to keep you informed on what to do next.

Flower Power measures sunlight, soil moisture, temperature and fertilizer, and knows, based on what plant, exactly what needs to be done to keep it alive. The application for the device connects to a cloud server, which relays information back to you, letting you know whether you need to water the plant, add more fertilizer, be mindful of the temperature or sunlight exposure.

If a plant is beginning to get a little low on water, the app gives a yellow warning icon to let you know about how long you can wait until the next watering. Once the icon turns red, and then you better give that plant a little H2O before it’s too late.

Push notifications can help to remind you that the plant is getting a little low on one of its essential elements, making it a lot easier to maintain without worry. The engineer told me that the number one cause of deaths among plants is actually over-watering, so this app strives to help stop that by letting you know when the plant needs a little more water.

INTRODUCTION

THE NEED OF TECHNOLOGY IN AGRICULTURE:

We first need to recognize that agriculture is a science that is vital to human well being. Through continuous innovations over thousands of years, farmers have fed ever growing population with an increasing variety of produce. The Indian farmers and those who are working for their welfare need to be e-powered or have to make them use the modern technology. This has to be considered as a serious issue so as to make them face the emerging scenario of complete or partial deregulation and reduction in government protection, opening up of agricultural markets, fluctuation in agricultural environment and to exploit possible opportunities for exports. The quality of rural life can also be improved by quality information inputs as well as aware them regarding the upcoming technology which will provide them better decision making abilities.

Information technology plays a major role in facilitating the process of transformation of rural India to meet those challenges and to remove the fast growing digital devides. The rapid changes in the field of information technology make it possible to develop and disseminate required electronics services to India. The technology plays a major role in the agricultural sector. There are lots and lots of people who are unaware of the modern technology and in most of the cases some agricultural plants are been left unattended. So the use of modern technology helps them overcome these problems.

Today there are many challenges in delivering the modern technology in the agricultural sector. Some of the challenges faced are:

Lack of trained people.

Awareness regarding the upcoming technology.

Pressures on farmers from the MNC’s.

Cost.

Lack of knowledge.

Above mentioned are some of the challenges that are faced by the agricultural sectors. These challenges lead to the desires of the farmers. So in order to meet the above challenges the use of ICT in agriculture should be made in order to increase their efficiencies and effectiveness in the agricultural sector.

Most of the green houses are fully equipped with new technology. Most of them are making use of the wired technology where at times it’s dangerous. Nowadays scientists in the fields of agricultural sector are realizing the advantages of the wireless technology. Bluetooth is one kind of technology which is finding its root in the Indian market.

ABOUT BLUETOOTH WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY:

Bluetooth wireless technology is the global short-range wireless standard for personal connectivity of a broad range of electronic device. The technology continues to evolve, building on its inherent strengths – small form factor radio, low power, low cost, built in security, ease of use and ad-hoc networking abilities. This evolution now provides manufacturers and consumers with three options for connectivity wirelessly- Classic Bluetooth technology for use in a wide range of consumer electronics; Bluetooth high speed technology for the transfer of video, information’s, music and also documents between phones, cameras, PC’s; and Bluetooth low energy technology for low power sensor devices and new web services within health care, fitness, security, and so on. Now it has also extended to many of the sectors. As per the study regarding the usage of Bluetooth devices it has been that nearly 3 billion people are using Bluetooth devices.

The basic radio circuitry has almost similar power consumption as for standard Bluetooth radio (in dual-mode devices it is likely to be the same circuitry), but the overall power consumption is aimed to be lower, primarily by having a lower duty cycle. During transmission and reception these devices exhibit peak currents in the tens of milliamps (mA) range in both Bluetooth low energy technology and Bluetooth modes. In sleep modes, the aim is to have current consumption reduced to tens of nanoamps (nA). Because of very low duty cycles (of the order of 0.25%) average currents are therefore in the microamp (μA) range enabling button cell battery power sources to last up to a year.

Bluetooth low energy technology operates in the same spectrum range (2402-2480 MHz) as Classic Bluetooth technology, but uses a different set of channels. Instead of Bluetooth technology's 79 1 MHz wide channels, Bluetooth low energy technology has 40 2 MHz wide channels. Bluetooth low energy technology uses a different frequency hopping scheme to Classic Bluetooth technology; as a result, while both FCC and ETSI classify Bluetooth technology as an FHSS scheme, Bluetooth low energy technology is classified as a system using digital modulation techniques or a direct-sequence spread spectrum.

Bluetooth low energy technology is designed with two equally important implementation alternatives: single-mode and dual-mode. Small devices like tokens, watches and sports sensors based on a single-mode Bluetooth low energy implementation will enjoy the low-power consumption advantages enabled for highly integrated and compact devices. In dual-mode implementations Bluetooth low energy functionality is integrated into Classic Bluetooth circuitry. The architecture will share Classic Bluetooth technology radio and antenna, enhancing currently available chips with the new low energy stack—enhancing the development of Classic Bluetooth devices with new capabilities.

TECHNOLOGY VISION AND VIALBILITY

Scientist have developed a new sensor that can alert humans to the needs of their household plants like the amount of sunlight or water required. The two pronged sensor can report on sunlight, temperature, water and fertilizer conditions by using low power Bluetooth signals to send alerts.

Dangerous conditions for plants may trigger extra warnings through the flower power app on a persons Smartphone or tablet. Flower power was something which people had a keen attention in the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show which will be coming out this year.

This technology was found by PARROT which is US based company. Parrot’s device makes keeping up with your flowerbed, or garden, easy, and without the need to read an instruction manual on each flower to do so.

Flower power is a wireless plant sensor that helps keep track of the soil around your plant and provides feedback to let you know exactly what you need to do to keep the particular plant species alive. They have a database of 6,000 plants developed by botanists, which helps them know exactly what needs to be done to keep them alive. All you need is the Flower Power, an iPhone or iPad, and Bluetooth connectivity.

Once you’ve installed the Flower Power by a plant in your garden, or a potted plant in your house, just download the app and then you can rely on Parrot to keep you informed on what to do next.

Flower Power measures sunlight, soil moisture, temperature and fertilizer, and knows, based on what plant, exactly what needs to be done to keep it alive. The application for the device connects to a cloud server, which relays information back to you, letting you know whether you need to water the plant, add more fertilizer, be mindful of the temperature or sunlight exposure.

If a plant is beginning to get a little low on water, the app gives a yellow warning icon to let you know about how long you can wait until the next watering. Once the icon turns red, and then you better give that plant a little H2O before it’s too late.

Push notifications can help to remind you that the plant is getting a little low on one of its essential elements, making it a lot easier to maintain without worry. The engineer told me that the number one cause of deaths among plants is actually over-watering, so this app strives to help stop that by letting you know when the plant needs a little more water.

Flower Power uses Bluetooth 4.0 for connectivity, which makes keeping Bluetooth turned on a little easier on your battery. The advanced plant sensor’s battery life is up to six months, and it just takes a single AAA battery.

The Parrot engineer said that, theoretically, there could be up to 1,000 devices used at once. However, he said that really it is more of an iPad capability that limits using too many products, not so much whether their network could handle it. Ideally, you would buy a few to spread out around the garden to different varieties of plants you hope to keep alive.

Technologies main vision is to provide a support to the agricultural sector. This helps in better survival of plants that can be of great use to agricultural sector.

MOTIVATION

Parrot, one of the best companies in the field of Bluetooth technology had revealed a prototype of a smart gardening gadget named Flower Power. This technology allows users to get data in real time about how to best care for plants, flowers, vegetables, and your lawn as well. This motivated me to take up this technology as it can be of great help to the Indian economy as well the agricultural sector of India.

Flower power measures sunlight, soil moisture, temperature and fertilizer and knows based on what plant, exactly what needs to be done to keep it alive. The application for the device connects to a cloud server, which relays information back to you, letting you know whether you need to water the plant, add more fertilizer, be mindful of the temperature or sunlight exposure.

This technology makes use of Bluetooth as well as sensors. The Bluetooth is mainly used to transfer the information to the Iphone or Ipad. Sensors are being used so as to sense or to measure the humidity, temperature, sunlight so that it can give the individual a great clear cut knowledge of what to do next.

For example:

If a plant is beginning to get little low on water, the app gives yellow warning icon to let you know about how long you can wait until the watering. Once the icon turns red, and then you better give that plant a little H2O before it’s too late.

Parrot showed off this product at the 2013 International Consumer Electronic Show that will be available in the market. This technology was one of the favorite gadgets displayed there. Parrots device makes keeping up with your flowerbed, or garden, easy, and without the need to read an instruction manual on each flower to do so.

Once you have installed the Flower Power by a plant in your farm or garden, or a potted plant in your house, just download the app and then you can rely on parrot to keep you informed on what to do next.

Farmers in a village may have planted the same crop for centuries, but overtime , weather patterns and soil conditions change and epidemics of pests and diseases come and go. Use of modern technology helps the farmers to cope with changes that damage the plants.

TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENT

HARDWARE:

This technology’s concept is just simple. The hardware requirements for making use of this technology are:

Flower Power device itself.

An Iphone or an Ipad.

FLOWER POWER:

Flower power technology was revealed at the CES 2013 EXPO. This device was designed mainly to overcome the problem of killing of plants.

Flower power is a device which is shaped like a pair of shears. This devices measures the sunlight, humidity temperature and fertilizer. This app will be having a separate app to deal with it. This app will be having the data base of around 6000 plants that are commonly available worldwide. When you select any plant from the library it reveals details about the plants, such as how much water it needs and that it should or shouldn’t be harvested. After putting the device into the soil, it will tell you the next time you should water it and how much sunlight it’s getting. It will also give you a graph to show you it’s health.

Flower power is having four sensors in total. The four sensors are:

Light sensor

Temperature sensor

Moisture sensor

Fertilizers sensors.

Light sensors are mainly used to sense the sunlight.

Temperature sensors are used to measure the temperature.

Moisture sensors are used to measure the moisture as well as the humidity of the soil.

Fertilizers sensors are used to measure the fertilizer content which is there in the soil.

By placing the Flower Power into the soil of an indoor or outdoor plant, it measures what needed to facilitate growth via sensors built into its base. Data is transferred via Bluetooth Smart to the cloud and is retrievable via the accompanying smart phone or tablet app. With wireless sensors to measure sunlight, humidity temperature and fertilizers, Flower Power, this takes the form of a stake that goes into the soil, keeps tabs on the health of your plants and sends this information to your smartphone via the low powered Bluetooth 4.0 in the event your black thumb finger kicks in, Flower Power will let you know your greenery is in need of some water. This Flower power technology would be more useful in the agricultural sector and can be in the horticulture which may reduce the manhood.

If a plant is beginning to get a little low on water, the app gives a yellow warning icon to let you know about how long you can wait until the next watering. Once the icon turns red, then you better give that plant a little H2O before its too late.

Push notifications can help to remind you that the plant is getting a little low on one of its essential elements, making it a lot easier to maintain without worry. The engineer told me that the number one cause of deaths among plants is actually over-watering, so this app strives to help stop that by letting you know when the plant needs a little more water.

Flower Power uses Bluetooth 4.0 for connectivity, which makes keeping Bluetooth turned on a little easier on your battery. The advanced plant sensor’s battery life is up to six months, and it just takes a single AAA battery.

AN IPHONE OR AN IPAD:

Flower Power is a device which senses or measures the humidity, sunlight, moisture, as well as the fertilizer content in the soil. After measuring all this, the sheer shaped device will transmit the information to an Ipad or an Iphone. For having a look into the information is needed to have either a Ipad or Iphone. All devices having Bluetooth technologies have the option of using this device, but at present the device is compactable only with an Ipad or Iphone. This device will be having more options when it comes to the market later this year.

Most of the people in this co-operate world are aware of the Ipad or the Iphone. Most of the softwares are more applicable in this new technology phone. As this phone is more famous in today’s world, people are aware of how to use this phone.

SOFTWARE:

Flower Power is a device which has only limited software involved in this technology. This device was developed by Parrot. The software’s or the technologies involved in this device are as follows:

Bluetooth

Sensors

BLUETOOTH:

Bluetooth is technology which has found its in today’s society. The Flower power device makes use of the low powered Bluetooth. This low powered Bluetooth are also known as BLE i.e. (Bluetooth Low Powered). The BLE is a feature of Bluetooth 4.0 wireless radio technology, aimed at new principally low power and low latency, applications for wireless devices within a short range (up to 50 metres / 160 feet) this facilitates a wide range of applications and smaller form factor devices.

Devices using Bluetooth low energy wireless technology are expected to consume a fraction of the power of Classic Bluetooth enabled products for Bluetooth communication. In many cases, products will be able to operate more than a year on a button cell battery without recharging. It will allow sensors such as thermometers to operate continuously, communicating intermittently with other devices such as a mobile phone. This may increase the concerns for privacy, as when the remote, low power, continuously on, sensor would be present in devices with BLE.

Note that the lower power consumption is not achieved by the nature of the active radio transport, but by the design of the protocol to allow low duty cycles, and by the use cases envisaged. A Bluetooth low energy device used for continuous data transfer would not have lower power consumption than a comparable Bluetooth device transmitting the same amount of data. It would likely use more power, since the protocol is optimized for small bursts.

Several chip suppliers have released Bluetooth low energy chips. Some of these offered chip designs include the entire protocol suite implementation, others allow for special implementing strategies. Some of these chip designs allow for dynamic change of protocol suite even outside the Bluetooth technology/Bluetooth low energy standard, others are just tailored for one protocol suite. Those offering products include Broadcom, CSR, EM Microelectronic, Nordic Semiconductor, and Texas Instruments.

The basic radio circuitry has almost similar power consumption as for standard Bluetooth radio (in dual-mode devices it is likely to be the same circuitry), but the overall power consumption is aimed to be lower, primarily by having a lower duty cycle. During transmission and reception these devices exhibit peak currents in the tens of milliamps (mA) range in both Bluetooth low energy technology and Bluetooth modes. In sleep modes, the aim is to have current consumption reduced to tens of nanoamps (nA). Because of very low duty cycles (of the order of 0.25%) average currents are therefore in the microamp (μA) range enabling button cell battery power sources to last up to a year.

Bluetooth low energy technology operates in the same spectrum range (2402-2480 MHz) as Classic Bluetooth technology, but uses a different set of channels. Instead of Bluetooth technology's 79 1 MHz wide channels, Bluetooth low energy technology has 40 2 MHz wide channels. Bluetooth low energy technology uses a different frequency hopping scheme to Classic Bluetooth technology; as a result, while both FCC and ETSI classify Bluetooth technology as an FHSS scheme, Bluetooth low energy technology is classified as a system using digital modulation techniques or a direct-sequence spread spectrum.

Bluetooth low energy technology is designed with two equally important implementation alternatives: single-mode and dual-mode. Small devices like tokens, watches and sports sensors based on a single-mode Bluetooth low energy implementation will enjoy the low-power consumption advantages enabled for highly integrated and compact devices. In dual-mode implementations Bluetooth low energy functionality is integrated into Classic Bluetooth circuitry. The architecture will share Classic Bluetooth technology radio and antenna, enhancing currently available chips with the new low energy stack—enhancing the development of Classic Bluetooth devices with new capabilities.

The Bluetooth low energy protocol is not backward compatible with classic Bluetooth protocol. However, Bluetooth low energy technology and Bluetooth technology operate on the same spectrum so the underlying hardware is likely to be similar. A given device may be able to operate as a Bluetooth low energy technology and Bluetooth device using the very same chip and radio hardware, though not simultaneously; this is a Bluetooth 4.0 dual-mode device. Bluetooth 4.0 includes both Classic Bluetooth technology and Bluetooth low energy technology.

Bluetooth low energy technology is the hallmark feature of v4.0 of the Bluetooth Core Specification. This enhancement to the Bluetooth Core Specification that will enable new functionality and applications for remote controls, healthcare monitors sports sensors and other devices. Bluetooth low energy technology will enhance existing use cases and will enable new ones, widening the applicability and functionality of Bluetooth technology.

The respective chips may be integrated into products such as tokens, watches, manual controls, wireless keyboards, gaming pads and body sensors, which may then connect to host devices such as mobile phones, smart phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), tablet PCs, notebook PCs, laptop PCs and other grades of and personal computers (PCs).

Bluetooth low energy technology hence may extend any personal area network according to the intentions with IEEE 802.15 WPAN to include watches and toys, sports and health care equipment, human interface (HIDs) and entertainment devices.

SENSORS:

A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) consists of spatially distributed autonomous sensors to monitor physical or environmental conditions, such as temperature, sound, pressure, etc. and to cooperatively pass their data through the network to a main location. The more modern networks are bi-directional, also enabling control of sensor activity. The development of wireless sensor networks was motivated by military applications such as battlefield surveillance; today such networks are used in many industrial and consumer applications, such as industrial process monitoring and control, machine health monitoring, and so on.

The WSN is built of "nodes" – from a few to several hundreds or even thousands, where each node is connected to one (or sometimes several) sensors. Each such sensor network node has typically several parts: a radio transceiver with an internal antenna or connection to an external antenna, a microcontroller, an electronic circuit for interfacing with the sensors and an energy source, usually a battery or an embedded form of energy harvesting. A sensor node might vary in size from that of a shoebox down to the size of a grain of dust, although functioning "motes" of genuine microscopic dimensions have yet to be created. The cost of sensor nodes is similarly variable, ranging from a few to hundreds of dollars, depending on the complexity of the individual sensor nodes. Size and cost constraints on sensor nodes result in corresponding constraints on resources such as energy, memory, computational speed and communications bandwidth. The topology of the WSNs can vary from a simple star network to an advanced multi-hop wireless mesh network. The propagation technique between the hops of the network can be routing or flooding.

In computer science and telecommunications, wireless sensor networks are an active research area with numerous workshops and conferences arranged each year.

The above shown is a sensor which is been used in this device Flower Power.

The main characteristics of a WSN include:

• Power consumption constrains for nodes using batteries or energy harvesting

• Ability to cope with node failures

• Mobility of nodes

• Communication failures

• Heterogeneity of nodes

• Scalability to large scale of deployment

• Ability to withstand harsh environmental conditions

• Ease of use

Sensor nodes can be imagined as small computers, extremely basic in terms of their interfaces and their components. They usually consist of a processing unit with limited computational power and limited memory, sensors or MEMS (including specific conditioning circuitry), a communication device (usually radio transceivers or alternatively optical), and a power source usually in the form of a battery. Other possible inclusions are energy harvesting modules, secondary ASICs, and possibly secondary communication devices (e.g. RS-232 or USB).

APPLICATION:

Area monitoring

Area monitoring is a common application of WSNs. In area monitoring, the WSN is deployed over a region where some phenomenon is to be monitored. A military example is the use of sensors to detect enemy intrusion; a civilian example is the geo-fencing of gas or oil pipelines.

Environmental/Earth monitoring

The term Environmental Sensor Networks, has evolved to cover many applications of WSNs to earth science research. This includes sensing volcanoes , oceans , glaciers , forests , etc. Some of the major areas are listed below.

Air quality monitoring

The degree of pollution in the air has to be measured frequently in order to safeguard people and the environment from any kind of damages due to air pollution. In dangerous surroundings, real time monitoring of harmful gases is a concerning process because the weather can change with severe consequences in an immediate manner. Fortunately, wireless sensor networks have been launched to produce specific solutions for people.

Interior monitoring

Observing the gas levels at vulnerable areas needs the usage of high-end, sophisticated equipment, capable to satisfy industrial regulations. Wireless internal monitoring solutions facilitate keep tabs on large areas as well as ensure the precise gas concentration degree.

• Exterior monitoring

External air quality monitoring needs the use of precise wireless sensors, rain & wind resistant solutions as well as energy reaping methods to assure extensive liberty to machine that will likely have tough access.

• Network Infrastructure

Wireless sensor network solutions can make the network topology fit into the users’ requirements. These solutions range from one hop to many hop wireless protocols at bottom level, and at high level, it can make local access and also remote access to the sensor infrastructure with the help of internet.

• Software

• Data analysis & graphic creation

• Data storage

• Integration of the solution with the user’s system

Air pollution monitoring

Wireless sensor networks have been deployed in several cities (Stockholm, London or Brisbane) to monitor the concentration of dangerous gases for citizens. These can take advantage of the ad-hoc wireless links rather than wired installations, which also make them more mobile for testing readings in different areas. There are various architectures that can be used for such applications as well as different kinds of data analysis and data mining that can be conducted.

Forest fire detection

A network of Sensor Nodes can be installed in a forest to detect when a fire has started. The nodes can be equipped with sensors to measure temperature, humidity and gases which are produced by fire in the trees or vegetation. The early detection is crucial for a successful action of the firefighters; thanks to Wireless Sensor Networks, the fire brigade will be able to know when a fire is started and how it is spreading.

Landslide detection

A landslide detection system, makes use of a wireless sensor network to detect the slight movements of soil and changes in various parameters that may occur before or during a landslide. Through the data gathered it may be possible to know the occurrence of landslides long before it actually happens.

Water quality monitoring

Water quality monitoring involves analyzing water properties in dams, rivers, lakes & oceans, as well as underground water reserves. The use of many wireless distributed sensors enables the creation of a more accurate map of the water status, and allows the permanent deployment of monitoring stations in locations of difficult access, without the need of manual data retrieval.

Natural disaster prevention

Wireless sensor networks can effectively act to prevent the consequences of natural disasters, like floods. Wireless nodes have successfully been deployed in rivers where changes of the water levels have to be monitored in real time.

Machine health monitoring

Wireless sensor networks have been developed for machinery condition-based maintenance (CBM) as they offer significant cost savings and enable new functionalities. In wired systems, the installation of enough sensors is often limited by the cost of wiring. Previously inaccessible locations, rotating machinery, hazardous or restricted areas, and mobile assets can now be reached with wireless sensors.

The base stations are one or more components of the WSN with much more computational, energy and communication resources. They act as a gateway between sensor nodes and the end user as they typically forward data from the WSN on to a server. Other special components in routing based networks are routers, designed to compute, calculate and distribute the routing tables.

The device Flower Power is having four sensors in it. The four sensors are used to measure the sunlight, humidity, moisture and fertilizer content of the soil. The four sensors are as follows:

Light sensors

Temperature sensors

Moisture sensors

Fertilizer sensors.

Sensors help the users to know more about the plants. By knowing the information that is transferred by the Flower Power, the user will be able to cope up with the plants so as to make them long live.

Usage of modern technology in the field of Agricultural sector will help farmers to cope up with the problems that are faced by them and moreover the efforts of the farmers will be reduced.

TECHNOLOGY DESIGN

Flower Power, a sensor-driven gardening gadget that aims to help thumbs stay green on the go. Resembling a plastic plant stock, the small indoor/outdoor device gathers soil information and uses Bluetooth 4.0 to transmit it to your phone or tablet. Parameters monitored include the amount of sunlight the plant receives, environment temperature, humidity and soil salinity—a measure of how well-nourished the soil itself is at any given moment.

A free app accompanies Flower Power, with an extensive library of thousands of plants to make sure even your rarest flora is kept in tip top shape. With a range of 50 feet, the Flower Power's reach could conceivably even link to the front lawn or, perhaps more appropriately, your fire escape flower box. The low-energy sensor is ideal for those with tech knowledge and a less than green thumb.

The flower power gadget is having different kinds of sensors. These sensors measure the humidity, temperature, moisture, sunlight.

A free app accompanies Flower Power, with an extensive library of thousands of plants to make sure even your rarest flora is kept in tip top shape. With a range of 50 feet, the Flower Power's reach could conceivably even link to the front lawn or, perhaps more appropriately, your fire escape flower box. The low-energy sensor is ideal for those with tech knowledge and a less than green thumb.

Here's how it works: By placing the Flower Power device into the soil of an indoor or outdoor plant, it measures what's needed to facilitate growth via sensors built into its base. Data is transferred via Bluetooth Smart to the cloud and is retrievable via the accompanying smart phone or tablet app. The Flower power are mainly in the field of Agriculture. Flower power is designed in such a way that it resembles like that of a plant with its two leaves on either side. This device is having a sheer like thing which measures the amount of sunlight the plant is getting and while coming to the bottom of the device comes the temperature sensors which measures the humidity as well as the temperature surrounding the plant. At the bottom of the device, comes the moisture sensors and fertilizer sensor which in turn measures the moisture content and fertilizer content in the soil and sends a message via Bluetooth to the Ipad or Iphone so as prevent plant from getting killed. Most of the people in today’s economy are so busy in their world which they have built. They are not bothered about the people or the living things around them. So keeping this as one of the factor, Parrot developed this device so as to prevent plants from falling or getting killed.

This device would be available in the market by the end of 2013. The price and the availability of the product to various geographic place are not yet known.

FERTILISERS SENSORS

Flower power in detail. This device makes use of four sensors:

Sunlight sensors

Temperature sensors

Moisture sensors

Fertilizer sensors.

A sensor is otherwise called as detectors. Sensor is a converter that measures a physical quantity and converts it into a signal which can be read by an observer or by an instrument. Sensors are used in everyday objects such as touch sensitive elevator buttons and lamps which dim or brighten by touching the base. There are also innumerable applications of sensors of which most people are never aware. A sensor receives and responds to a signal when touched. Sensors need to be designed to have a small effect on what is measured; making the sensors smaller often improves this and may introduce other advantages.

SUNLIGHT SENSORS:

A light sensor, as it name suggests, is a device that is used to detect light. There are many different types of light sensors, each of which works in a slightly different way. Devices that include these sensors have many uses in scientific applications, but are also found in items that people encounter each day.

Many modern electronics such as computers, wireless phones, and televisions, use ambient light sensors to automatically control the brightness of a screen, especially in low light or high light situations. They can detect how much light is in a room and raise or lower the brightness to a more comfortable level for the user. Light sensors also may be use d to automatically turn on lights inside or outside a home or business at dark.

The light sensors, here is known as the sunlight sensors. These sunlight sensors on the device measures the amount of sunlight falling on the plant and sends an warning to the ipad or the iphone whether the plant needs more or less sunlight. These sensors are located at the top of the device so as measure the amount of sunlight falling in the plant.

TEMPERATURE SENSORS:

Temperature sensors are vital to a variety of everyday products. Temperature sensors are nothing but those sensors which measures the temperature around the device or the plant and sends a message to the ipad or the iphone regarding the temperature around the plant.

MOISTURE SENSORS:

Moisture sensors are those sensors which measure the moisture content present in the atmosphere. This sensor is located almost at the bottom of the device. This sensor measures the moisture content and sends the message to the device.

FERTILIZER SENSORS:

Fertilizer sensors are those sensors that measure the fertility content present in the soil. This devices is responsible for sending the warning message regarding the fertility content present in the soil even if the fertility content is low or high it is supposed to send an message to the device.

Hardware requirements for wireless sensors include:

(1) robust radio technology,

(2) low cost, energy-efficient processor,

(3) flexible I/O for various sensors,

(4) long-lifetime energy source and

(5) flexible, open source development platform.

In a wireless sensor network setting, a node in the network can be formed by a sensor/data acquisition board and a mote (processor/radio board). These nodes can communicate with a gateway unit, which has the capability of communicating with other computers via other networks, such as a LAN, a WLAN, a WPAN and the Internet. Wireless sensor boards available on the market include accelerometers, barometric pressure sensors, light sensors, GPS modules, temperature sensors, humidity sensors, acoustic sensors, magnetic RPM sensors, magnetometers, pyroelectric IR occupancy detectors, solar radiation sensors, soil moisture sensors, soil temperature sensors, wind speed sensors, rainfall meters and seismic sensors.

Flower Power uses Bluetooth 4.0 for connectivity, which makes keeping Bluetooth turned on a little easier on your battery. The advanced plant sensor’s battery life is up to six months, and it just takes a single AAA battery.

The Parrot engineer said that, theoretically, there could be up to 1,000 devices used at once. However, he said that really it is more of an iPad capability that limits using too many products, not so much whether their network could handle it.

Above mentioned is something related to the sensors. When it comes to the case of Bluetooth technology, this technology makes use of Bluetooth adversely. This device measures the sunlight, humidity, temperature and fertilizer content of the soil and transmits the information regarding the need of the plant via Bluetooth. The Bluetooth version which is been used is Bluetooth 4.0 which is a low power technology which helps in long life span of the battery as well as the device.

The app displays all the info you need about your plant and flags up areas of concern using colour-coded warning signs, telling you when your beloved bit of flora needs a top up. Graphs show you how they are all faring. This device also makes use of Bluetooth technology. Bluetooth is a standard often used in handheld, battery operated terminals to provide short range, low power connectivity for the transfer of voice, images and data. It has the advantage of being low power and inexpensive, whilst being able to transfer moderate amounts of data over a versatile, robust and secure radio link. Bluetooth wireless technology is the global short range wireless standard for personal connectivity of a broad range of electronic devices. The technology is now available in its fourth version of the core specification and continues to develop, building on its inherent strengths small form factor radio, low power, low cost, built in security, ease of use, and ad hoc networking abilities.

SYSTEM STUDY

Parrot showed off a new product at the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show. This product is ought to be out in the market by year end of 2013. Flower Power was one of the favorite gadgets had a keen attention from the consumer side. This device helps you to have a better treatment rather than throwing the plant away.

Flower power is a wireless plant sensor that helps you to keep a track of the soil, the temperature, the humidity and provides feedback to the person who is using it. This device was mainly coined so as to resolve all the problems regarding the life span of each plant. Flower power is designed in such a way that the it is easily movable, user friendly. So this acts as one of the main attraction of the device. The other main point in this technology is that it’s wireless. This device make use of the Bluetooth technology and it also makes use of sensors so as to sense or measure the temperature, humidity, sunlight and also the fertilizer content of the soil.

In order to use this device, all you need is the device i.e. Flower Power, an Ipad or an Iphone. All you need to do is that you have to place the flower power near to a plant which is either kept outside or inside. After placing the device you will have to switch on Bluetooth as well as activate the app. The app would b available in the internet which will be having an database of 6000 plants which will help in using the device. One of the most important facts is that this device is user friendly unless and until, the user knows to use an Ipad or Iphone. So once the device is placed neat the plant, within a short span of 15 minutes the device will measure the amount of sunlight which is falling on the plant, it will measure the temperature around the plant so as to let the user know, it will also measure the humidity and fertilizers content in the soil. These are measured using different sensors like light sensors, temperature sensors, moisture sensors, fertilizer sensors. These kind of sensors helps in measuring and Bluetooth helps in sending or transmitting the information to user. The application for the device connects to a cloud server, which relays information back to you, letting you know whether you need to water the plant, add more fertilizer, be mindful of the temperature or sunlight exposure. Push notifications can help to remind you that the plants is getting low on one of its essential elements, making it a lot easier to maintain without worrying. If a plant is beginning to get low on water, then the device would send information regarding the plant that the plant is getting is getting low on water and if the fertilizer or any of it goes down then the flower power automatically sends information to the Ipad or the Iphone. When app gives a yellow warning, then it means that it’s time for the user to water the plant, and if the icon turns red then it’s time to give the plant some H2O before it’s too late. As said by an engineer of Parrot there could be 1,000 devices used at once. However, he said that really it is more of an Ipad capability that limits using too many products, not so much whether their network could handle it. The Flower Power uses Bluetooth 4.0 for connectivity, which makes keeping Bluetooth turned on a little easier on your battery. The advanced plant sensor’s battery life up to six months, and it just takes a single AAA battery. The information that are available in the app, reveals details about the plants, such as how much water it needs and that it should or shouldn’t be harvested. After putting the device into the soil, it will tell you the next time you should water it and how much sunlight its getting. It will also give you a graph to show you its health. Graphs show you how they are all faring.

This device is currently being used in London. This device was been introduced in the CES Expo 2013. This device makes use of mainly four sensors:

Sunlight sensors

Moisture sensors

Fertilizer sensors

Temperature sensors.

These sensors measures the sunlight, moisture content in the atmosphere, fertilizer content in the soil and also the temperature around the plant and sends the message to the Ipad or the Iphone conveying suggestions for what to do next.

APPLICATION OF TECHNOLOGY

Using wireless sensor networks within the agricultural industry is increasingly common; using a wireless network frees the farmer from the maintenance of wiring in a difficult environment. Gravity feed water systems can be monitored using pressure transmitters to monitor water tank levels, pumps can be controlled using wireless I/O devices and water use can be measured and wirelessly transmitted back to a central control center for billing. Irrigation automation enables more efficient water use and reduces waste.

• Accurate agriculture

Wireless sensor networks let users to make precise monitoring of the crop at the time of its growth. Hence, farmers can immediately know the state of the item at all its stages which will ease the decision process regarding the time of harvest.

• Irrigation management

When real time data is delivered, farmers are able to achieve intelligent irrigation. Data regarding the fields such as temperature level and soil moisture are delivered to farmers through wireless sensor networks. When each plant is joined with a personal irrigation system, farmers can pour the precise amount of water each plant needs and hence, reduce the cost and improve the quality of the end product. The networks can be employed to manage various actuators in the systems using no wired infrastructure.

• Greenhouses

Wireless sensor networks are also used to control the temperature and humidity levels inside commercial greenhouses. When the temperature and humidity drops below specific levels, the greenhouse manager must be notified via e-mail or cell phone text message, or host systems can trigger misting systems, open vents, turn on fans, or control a wide variety of system responses.

Recent research in wireless sensor networks in agriculture industry give emphasis on its use in greenhouses, particularly for big exploitations with definite crops. Such microclimatic ambiances need to preserve accurate weather status at all times. Moreover, using multiple distributed sensors will better control the above process, in open surface as well as in the soil.

So likewise wireless sensors can also be used in the field of agriculture so as to have a better and effective agricultural economy. Flower power is a technology which can be of more use when it comes to the agricultural field. Pollution is a thing which is creating lot of societies in the many of the sectors. Agricultural sector is adversely affected by pollution nowadays. Pollution is a byproduct of regular economic activities. In each of its many forms it is related in a measurable way to sense particular consumption or production process: the quantity of carbon monoxide released in the air bears, for example a definite relationship to the amount of fuel burned by the automobiles, burning of waste may affect the soil content which may inturn affect the soil content. Agricultural sector is one of the main sector which play a crucial role in todays economy. Lack of technology is the main thing which affects the agricultural sector or the people who are having horticulture as their business.

The flower power helps those people in many ways. This technology is mainly concerned with the protection of plants i.e "GO GREEN". This technology helps people to know more about their plants well. They have a database of 6,000 plants developed by botanists, which helps them know exactly what needs to be done to keep them alive. All you need is the Flower Power, an iPhone or iPad, and Bluetooth connectivity.

Nowadays most of the plants are going dead because of lack of attention towards it. So what this technology all about? This technology helps people to know more about the plants and also help them live longer. Finally, with the help of this technology the agricultural sector will a have great growth, when mainly concerned about the people with horticulture as their business it will be of a great help.

Nowadays, the topics of hunger, poverty and food security dominate the headlines of a newspaper. In order to have a better productivity of food products usage of modern technology is a must. When there is use of modern technology, the economic growth as well as the company will be having a great and efficient productivity. Technology is the enabler of resource efficiency and provides better solutions for farmers so they are able to meet the needs of the world. Policies that restrict this technology from reaching farmers are a threat to the right to food. Agricultural technology is not a lifestyle choice-it fulfills the right to food by ensuring that all people have the capacity to feed themselves in dignity. By using the modern technology, it improves the quality of plants, vegetables. The other thing is that it frequently dis- employs manual laborers.