Agricultural Internet of Things

Book excerpt: Internet of things (IoT) is a new type of network that combines communication technology, expanded applications, and physical devices. Among them, agriculture is one of the most important areas in the application of the IoT technology, which has its unique requirements and integration features. Compared to the information technology in traditional agriculture, the agricultural IoT mainly refers to industrialized production and sustainable development under relatively controllable conditions. Agricultural IoT applies sensors, RFID, visual capture terminals and other types of sensing devices to detect and collect site information, and with broad applications in field planting, facility horticulture, livestock and poultry breeding, aquaculture and agricultural product logistics. It utilizes multiple information transmission channels such as wireless sensor networks, telecommunications networks and the internet to achieve reliable transmission of agricultural information at multiple scales and intelligently processes the acquired, massive information. The goals are to achieve (i) optimal control of agricultural production process, (ii) intelligent electronic trading of agricultural products circulation, and (iii) management of systematic logistics, quality and safety traceability. This book focuses on three levels of agricultural IoT network: information perception technology, information transmission technology and application technology.