An Integrated Decision Support System Based on Wireless Sensor Networks Applied in Precision Agriculture

This paper presents the development of an Integrated Decision Support System (IDSS) based on Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) and a simulation procedure, using Matlab^® and Opnet^® platforms. Furthermore, a new mathematical model handling the spatial distribution of water evaporation is proposed, which is applied to furrow and center pivot irrigation systems. This integrated system is appropriate for calculating the Irrigation Scheduling (IS) during the crop growth stages, which in turn leads to a maximized crop production. The objective of this research is twofold; namely, to increase the performance in water management as well as increase the crop production and ultimately provide a useful tool for the agriculture scientists and farmers. Experimental results showed that applying this IDSS has the potential to make significant contributions to the Precision Agriculture (PA) field and ultimately lead to product quality and environmental gains.