Wireless technologies for smart agricultural monitoring using internet of things devices with energy harvesting capabilities.

• A prototype was designed using IoT components for agricultural monitoring. • Benefits of using IoT devices with energy harvesting for agricultural applications. • Experiments were conducted throughout a year and in different seasons. • LoRaWAN is the optimal wireless technology to use for agricultural monitoring. Technological advances in the Internet of Things (IoT) have paved the way for wireless technologies to be used in new areas. Agricultural monitoring is an example where IoT can help to increase productivity, efficiency, and output yield. However, powering these devices is a concern as batteries are often required due to devices being located where electricity is not readily available. In this paper, an experimental comparison is performed between IoT devices with energy harvesting capabilities that use three wireless technologies: IEEE 802.11 g (WiFi 2.4 GHz), IEEE 802.15.4 (Zigbee), and Long Range Wireless Area Network (LoRaWAN), for agricultural monitoring. Four experiments were conducted to examine the performance of each technology under different environmental conditions. According to the results, LoRaWAN is the optimal wireless technology to be used in an agricultural monitoring system, when the power consumption and the network lifetime are a priority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]