Low cost IoT solutions for agricultures fish farmers in Afirca:a case study from Burkina Faso

In this paper, we share our experience of the deployment of a sensor network. This sensor network was deployed at the Aquaculture and Aquatic Biodiversity Research Unit (UR-ABAQ) at NAZI BONI University. The deployed sensors - permanently monitor the pH, dissolved oxygen and water temperature of a clarias (a fish species) hatchery - measure the soil moisture of banana and papaya fields - and finally measure the meteorological parameters (wind speed, air humidity, rainfall, sunshine...) of the laboratory site. The hatchery parameters collected make it possible to control the mortality of fry (sending of SMS alerts, twitter, facebook in case of exceeding the threshold of certain parameters). The soil moisture collected will optimize the watering of the fields by the water rich in fertilizers produced by the fish of the aquacultural ponds. Finally, the weather parameters will make it possible to determine the correlations between the weather parameters and the production of the banana and papaya fields. The data collected is sent on a cloud platform through a gateway equipped with a LoRa antenna and a 3G MoDem. The sensors communicate with a radio wave to the gateway using also LoRa technology. These energy-efficient sensors are equipped with a solar power supply and a LoRa radio antenna that can transmit 15 km in rural areas.