Feature: Sensor technology
Satellite IoT applied to monitoring utilities
670 million people in Africa – roughly half the population – already face food insecurity. To generate increases in yield
without a major increase of area under cultivation will require significant changes in the face of climate change, forcing agricultural producers to battle against water shortages, increasing temperatures and increasingly common freak weather incidents. Over the last few years, IoT has
emerged as one of the most important technologies to help address these challenges and in its ‘Worldwide IoT in Agriculture Market Size 2023’ report, Statista predicts that the global agricultural IoT market will reach almost $30bn by 2023. This is about delivering more data points to give agronomists, engineers, designers and farmers an increasingly granular data picture of the food production cycle. Key data sources include soil moisture
sensing, weather stations, crop and storage monitoring, livestock and asset tracking, following the complete field-
to-fork journey. For example, Wyld Networks is working with Canadian- based Agrology to use its GroundTruth Array soil-moisture sensors to gather data from even the most remote locations. Agrology’s predictive platform helps to identify and mitigate a variety of issues including smoke taint, irrigation and climate change. Meanwhile, Bayer Crop Science is also
harnessing sensor-to-satellite technology to capture data from beehives in locations with no or poor cellular coverage. It will allow hive managers and researchers to reliably and conveniently access and share critical sensor data to help maximise yield and optimise hive health. And in South America, Treevia is deploying sensor-to-satellite technology to help automate forest management there or anywhere in the world. With a critical need to develop sustainable forest management solutions, Treevia will be able to monitor variables in forest environments by automating data collection using high-precision IoT sensors.
New opportunities Away from agriculture, sensor-to-satellite IoT is also gaining a high level of interest from other sectors. For example, in oil and gas, Chevron is working on a pilot solution to improve efficiency by collecting data from IoT sensors in remote locations to help reduce equipment downtime and enhance preventative maintenance. Global IoT is also at the heart of the utilities data revolution, enabling smart grids, assets and meters to manage infrastructure more efficiently, profitably and sustainably. And with 100% global coverage across air, sea, road and rail, producers, manufacturers, logistics providers and other parties in the supply chain can gain valuable insights leading to an improved customer experience, operational efficiency and significant cost savings. Te revolution in satellite IoT
technology will overcome the two key barriers to universal access – global coverage and affordability – and as such can truly be seen as technology to democratise the IoT.
www.electronicsworld.co.uk July/August 2022 31
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