Application of 5G technology in smart agriculture

Smart agriculture and precision farming combine technology to enable greater efficiency and productivity from farm to market. Smart farming – uses IoT sensors to connect everything from irrigation systems to soil and livestock production. As 5G rolls out around the world, this high-bandwidth cellular technology is expected to have a significant impact on agricultural technology.

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Agtech companies aim to maximize food production by providing farmers with the data they need to make good business decisions. Smart agtech solutions help farms:

• Reduce resource consumption (e.g., water, food, fertilizers, pesticides)
• Minimizes runoff and soil erosion
• Improve efficiency of overall operations and product distribution

One example is Clover, a hydroponic farm in Bangalore, India. Clover uses wireless sensors to monitor crop growth in greenhouses. Aggregating data from multiple locations enables them to improve their growing protocols, resulting in healthier crops and more abundant harvests.

From orchards to cattle ranches, farms are leveraging IoT solutions to monitor multiple drivers that impact their bottom line, including:

• temperature
• Soil conditions
• Pollutants
• Water Quality

Fixed and mobile applications may require cellular IoT connectivity to enable remote data collection and device management. These capabilities are similar to manufacturing environments where the entire process can be monitored.

Today, some smart agriculture terminals rely on short-range wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Others use cellular mobile networks due to distance and RF coverage requirements.

5G will enable new applications and enhance or replace short-range applications. One example is the use of camera-equipped drones to monitor crop growth and livestock health.

5G and the future of smart agriculture

The early stages of 5G are focused on enabling high-bandwidth connections. Centralized farms will be the most practical use case until 5G infrastructure becomes more ubiquitous. Large enterprise agricultural operations will likely build a dedicated 5G network to enable high-bandwidth use cases (e.g., crop monitoring using drones) and data aggregation from thousands of transactional or triggered IoT sensors.

Currently, 5G will be most leveraged when agricultural operations utilize large amounts of data from disparate sources. On an industrial chicken farm, data from thermostats and feeders arrives at a central connection point. Each of these thousands of sensors produces a small amount of data at very little cost or complexity for a broadband-grade 5G data pipe. When aggregated in appropriately sized clusters, the resulting bandwidth can be on par with 5G mobile broadband bandwidth. 5G is a great solution for aggregating and backhauling this information.

We can expect 5G 3GPP Release (Rel) 17 to enable massive IoT in three to five years. Rel 17 will enable developers to take advantage of standards for low-power devices running on 5G New Radio (NR) radio access networks (RAN). When this happens, data aggregation on short-range radio technologies can be eased because low-cost, low-power sensors can run on low-power 5G NR modems.

In the next 5 to 10 years, lower LTE categories (i.e. NB-IoT and LTE-M) will play a leading role in connectivity options for remote agricultural sensors. As the technology develops, power requirements and costs will decrease, leading to new designs and concepts for remote agricultural sensors. As 5G standards evolve, the end-to-end capabilities of bridging technology will become more seamless.

5G Use Cases in Agriculture

Here are some potential current and future 5G use cases in smart agriculture technology:

(1) Data Aggregation

5G technology holds great promise for centralized data aggregation in large agricultural operations. A larger industrial farm could set up a proprietary 5G network to aggregate data from micro-monitoring crop management systems. These systems include clusters of soil moisture sensors that could be hundreds of times denser than current technology supports. The network could enable more efficient real-time monitoring systems and trigger water-saving irrigation and other crop support systems.

(2) Predictive analysis

Because 5G technology enables data aggregation, large industrial farms can better integrate predictive analytics. Taking into account past and current condition data (such as soil moisture and pesticide use), analytical software can create models and predictions to help farmers make decisions. As 5G enables more intensive real-time data, analysis will become more precise, thereby maximizing farm yields and efficiency.

(3) Drones

More and more farmers are using drones to monitor their crops. Drones are cheaper than driving a tractor through the fields and can provide more targeted information on crop damage and other variables. As a high-bandwidth technology, 5G will enable drones to collect higher-quality video data and transmit it faster. This high-speed data transmission capability will enable AI drone technology development and real-time reporting.

(4) Livestock tracking and monitoring

Until Rel 17 improves the feasibility of 5G's low power consumption and denser sensor networks, livestock monitoring sensors will likely remain connected via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or LTE LPWAN. An exception is in large centralized farms, where 5G infrastructure can be built over a small area (such as a chicken farm) and track individual livestock. Agricultural technology developers have already created herd management sensors, including smart collars and ear tags, to track the location and health of livestock.

(5) Autonomous agricultural vehicles

Autonomous vehicle technology developed in other fields will translate to agricultural implements. Tractors equipped with onboard computers already allow operators to control minute details of farming tasks (e.g., the distance between seed rows and the pressure applied to them when planting). Unmanned farm equipment will improve, giving farmers greater flexibility and efficiency, and saving on labor costs.

Trucks used for crop transport can also reap the benefits of IoT sensors. These sensors can track cargo temperature and sound an alarm if it’s too hot or too cold (i.e., cold chain). Small mobile sensors such as asset trackers will likely continue to use high-latency technologies such as LPWAN. 5G will enable autonomous vehicles with more powerful onboard computers to send and receive larger, ultra-low latency data streams, including video.

(6) Weather Station

Agricultural operations are affected by weather. Farmers can lose large amounts of crops to preventable diseases and damage. Weather stations connected to the field can solve this dilemma, providing farmers with data on field conditions.

One example is the InField monitoring system developed by AMA Instruments. InField measures soil moisture and texture, air temperature, wind speed, and sunlight exposure. Weather stations deployed in remote areas will likely continue to use LPWAN connections in the near future. Later, they will benefit from 5G as it will create more data-intensive observations and edge computing.

As the cellular connected world transitions to 5G, smart agriculture will continue to evolve. Data and predictive analytics will enable farmers to make decisions that increase productivity and efficiency. The global outcome will be sustainable agricultural practices to feed a growing population.