Harnessing the Power of Drones for Precision Agriculture: A Real-Time Monitoring System Utilizing Sensor Data and RF Communication

The main aim of this research is to develop a farming monitoring system using autonomous drones to improve the efficiency of farming activities. Therefore, a sensor attached to the drone will collect the temperature, humidity and gas around the farming area such as palm oil plantations. Hence, to extend its range, the Radio Frequency (RF) device with high transmission power is evaluated. In terms of the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI), the 1000 mW telemetry radio outperformed the 100 mW telemetry radio by 1 dBm to 25 dBm. However, the noise is amplified as well when using a 1000 mW telemetry radio. Hence, the noise of the 1000 mW telemetry radio was higher than the 100 mW telemetry radio. Moreover, the FastAPI is developed to monitor the data on HTML web pages. A ngrok server port forwards the server to the public access network. Furthermore, the 4G connection through ZeroTier develops the telemetry forward of Raspberry Pi 4 (RPi4) to the Ground Control Station (GCS). It is found that the average latency is 259.6 ms.