Presentation Toulouse

Development of an irrigation management system based on swarms of moisture sensors to optimize water efficiency in agriculture in areas with low internet connectivity.

Santiago Henao Galeano | Energy Transmission and Distribution Group UPB | International Research Network Inhabiting the Cities of the Future (REHVIF) | Doctoral intern at CEBAS-CSIC (Spain) | Tech Lead at Erco EnergíaDirector: Idi Amin Isaac Millán | Director UPB Smart Energy Center (SEC) | Energy Transmission and Distribution Group Codirector: Roberto Carlos Hincapie Reyes | Dean of Engineering, Pontificia Bolivariana University Bolivariana | Information and Communication Technology Applications Development Group

Medellín - Colombia

Medellín

• Second largest city in Colombia
• 3 million inhabitants
• "City of eternal spring"

UPB

• 4 campuses in different cities
• 31,000 people
• 87 years since its foundation

1. Ecocampus Medellín
2. Bucaramanga Campus
3. Montería Campus
4. Palmira Campus

UPB - SDG's

Energy Strategy +Water Management Strategy + Waste Management Strategy + Carbon Footprint Offset through Reforestation Projects in Post-conflict Zones

Zero Waste Management System

Gold Category80% Waste Reuse

Carbon Neutral

The first university in Latin America to achieve this certification at a multicampus level

TOP 5 Colombian universities in Times Higher Education Ranking 2023

UPB (2022) UPB Multicampus sustainability report (Global Reporting Iniative Methodology)Times Higher Education(2023) Impact Rankings 2023

Energy Transition & Sustainability Program

Problem Statement

Digitalization Enablers

Smart Agriculture

Agricultural Panorama

To accelerate the implementation of technologies and enhance agricultural systems, it is necessary to overcome gaps that hinder access to tools, especially in rural environments with lagging digital ecosystem development.

Innovation in digital technologies provides new opportunities to address the challenges of modern agriculture with reliable, cost-effective, and user-friendly solutions.

The growing demand for food, climate change, and environmental degradation make the efficient management of water resources increasingly critical.

Global Agriculture

60%

Increase in food production by the year 2050

of the world's freshwater is used for agricultural purposes

70%

¹ FAO (2017) The Future of Food and Agriculture: Trends and Challenges

Latin America and the Caribbean Agriculture

> 50 %

of agricultural production in the regions is attributed to small farmers

of the GDP in 20 countries of Latin America is represented by agriculture

> 5 %

FAO (2017) The Future of Food and Agriculture: Trends and Challenges CODS (2021) Los cambios que necesita el sector agrícola de cara al cambio climático M. Morris, S. Ashwini, y V. Perego, (2020) Panoramas alimentarios futuros: Reimaginando la agricultura en América Latina y el Caribe

Colombia Agriculture Panorama

15 %

below the Latin American average in recent years

of land with agricultural potential is used for this purpose.

< 25 %

¹ M. Morris, S. Ashwini, y V. Perego, (2020) Panoramas alimentarios futuros: Reimaginando la agricultura en América Latina y el Caribe

Sucre Agriculture Panorama

74%

of farmers are found in the lowest productivity levels.

of agricultural production units have access to the internet.

<1 %

The region often experiences severe drought seasons*Irrigation dependent on rainfall or ancestral knowledge*

³ Gobernación de Sucre (2020), Plan Departamental De Extensión Agropecuaria. Sucre , Una Gran Empresa Agroproductiva⁴ DANE (2019), Encuesta Nacional Agropecuaria

Problem Statement

Digitalization Enablers

Smart Agriculture

Agricultural Panorama

To accelerate the implementation of technologies and enhance agricultural systems, it is necessary to overcome gaps that hinder access to tools, especially in rural environments with lagging digital ecosystem development.

Innovation in digital technologies provides new opportunities to address the challenges of modern agriculture with reliable, cost-effective, and user-friendly solutions.

The growing demand for food, climate change, and environmental degradation make the efficient management of water resources increasingly critical.

Is technology a driver of change in agriculture?

Information and communication technology

Finance and insurance

Education

Agriculture & hunting

P. Gandhi, S. Khanna, and S. Ramaswamy, “Which Industries Are the Most Digital (and Why)?,”²

Problem Statement

Digitalization Enablers

Smart Agriculture

Agricultural Panorama

To accelerate the implementation of technologies and enhance agricultural systems, it is necessary to overcome gaps that hinder access to tools, especially in rural environments with lagging digital ecosystem development.

Innovation in digital technologies provides new opportunities to address the challenges of modern agriculture with reliable, cost-effective, and user-friendly solutions.

The growing demand for food, climate change, and environmental degradation make the efficient management of water resources increasingly critical.

Communities

• Low quality of life level
• Low digital literacy level
• Technical lack of criteria for irrigation management

Which are the enabling factors of digitization in agriculture? What is an appropriate design for an irrigation management system? How many measurement devices and where to place them to obtain the most information about soil moisture along a terrain?

Technology transfer processes

Low levels of internet connectivity

Low-cost systems

Research PRoblem

TECHNICAL

Objectives

General Objective

To develop a prototype crop irrigation management system based on the intelligent location of sensor swarms, enabling informed decision-making in agricultural areas with low connectivity.

Specific Objectives

Prototype of the Monitoring and Control System

Evaluation of the Proposed Solution

Enablers of Agricultural Digitalization

IntelligentSensor Placement

References

• CEPAL, FAO, & IICA. (2021). Perspectivas de la agricultura y del desarrollo rural en las Américas. In Una mirada hacia América Latina y el Caribe.
• UPB (2022) UPB Multicampus sustainability report (Global Reporting Iniative Methodology). https://gconocimiento.upb.edu.co/gesdoc/Informacin%20Institucional/Reporte_Sostenibilidad_UPB_Ingles_2022.pdf
• Times Higher Education(2023) Impact Rankings 2023. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/impactrankings
• Doshi, J., Patel, T., & Bharti, S. K. (2019). Smart Farming using IoT, a solution for optimally monitoring farming conditions. Procedia Computer Science, 160, 746–751. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.PROCS.2019.11.016

• FAO (2017) The Future of Food and Agriculture: Trends and Challenges. https://www.fao.org/3/i6583e/i6583e.pdf
• FAO. (2021). The state of the world’s land and water resources for food and agriculture.
• M. Morris, S. Ashwini, y V. Perego, (2020) Panoramas alimentarios futuros: Reimaginando la agricultura en América Latina y el Caribe. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/159291604953162277/pdf/Future-Foodscapes-Re-imagining-Agriculture-in-Latin-America-and-the-Caribbean.pdf
• Gobernación de Sucre. (2020). Plan Departamental De Extensión Agropecuaria. Sucre , Una Gran Empresa Agroproductiva. https://www.minagricultura.gov.co/ministerio/direcciones/PublishingImages/Paginas/PDEA/Sucre.pdf
• IRENA & FAO. (2021). Renewable Energy and Agri-food Systems: Advancing Energy and Food Security towards Sustainable Development Goals. In Renewable Energy and Agri-food Systems: Advancing Energy and Food Security towards Sustainable Development Goals. IRENA and FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cb7433en
• Muangprathub, J., Boonnam, N., Kajornkasirat, S., Lekbangpong, N., Wanichsombat, A., & Nillaor, P. (2019). IoT and agriculture data analysis for smart farm. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 156, 467–474. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2018.12.011
• Perfetti, J. J., Balcazar, Á., Hernández, A., & Leibovich, J. (2013). Políticas para el desarrollo de la agricultura en Colombia. In Políticas para el desarrollo de la agricultura en Colombia. https://www.repository.fedesarrollo.org.co/handle/11445/61
• Pramanik, M., Khanna, M., Singh, M., Singh, D. K., Sudhishri, S., Bhatia, A., & Ranjan, R. (2022). Automation of soil moisture sensor-based basin irrigation system. Smart Agricultural Technology, 2(August 2021), 100032. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atech.2021.100032
• P. Gandhi, S. Khanna, and S. Ramaswamy, “Which Industries Are the Most Digital (and Why)?. https://hbr.org/2016/04/a-chart-that-shows-which-industries-are-the-most-digital-and-why

• Soulis, K. X., & Elmaloglou, S. (2018). Optimum soil water content sensors placement for surface drip irrigation scheduling in layered soils. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 152, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2018.06.052
• Trendov, N., Varas, S., & Meng, Z. (2019). Tecnologías digitales en la agricultura y las zonas rurales.
• Wang, G., Zhang, X., Yinglan, A., Duan, L., Xue, B., & Liu, T. (2021). A spatio-temporal cross comparison framework for the accuracies of remotely sensed soil moisture products in a climate-sensitive grassland region. Journal of Hydrology, 597. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2021.126089

Thank you!

+57 312 886 7880 | +34 654 45 94 44

santiago.henao@upb.edu.co

Smart Energy Center UPB. Medellín, Colombia

The local landscape of agriculture

74%

of farmers are found in the lowest productivity levels.

of agricultural production units have access to the internet.

<1 %

³ Gobernación de Sucre (2020), Plan Departamental De Extensión Agropecuaria. Sucre , Una Gran Empresa Agroproductiva⁴ DANE (2019), Encuesta Nacional Agropecuaria

Specific Objective

To evaluate the monitoring system prototype with intelligent location of low-cost sensors to determine the validity of the localization technique and the proposed measurement system.

Challenges for the Digitalization of Agriculture

• Usability and utility of technologies
• Availability and affordability of technologies
• Available infrastructure
• Technological literacy of users
• Available incentives
• Technological transfer

Specific Objective

To determine a methodology that allows the optimal location of soil moisture sensors based on a stable representation of this variable across a terrain.

Specific Objective

To design a monitoring system prototype based on low-cost sensor swarms to measure relevant environmental variables in irrigation management in agricultural areas with low connectivity.

Monitoring and Control System

Algorithm flow:

Ini

• Search for a new point in the domain where adding a sensor minimizes the error.
• If adding the new sensor decreases the error, consider it an improvement
• If the error doesn't decrease after a certain number of attemps, add a new one to avoid falling into local minima

• Check if the change in error is greater than a given tolerance
• Check if the number of attemps is less than or equal to a preset limit
• Check if the number of sensors is less than or equal to a preset limit

• Search for a point in the selected sensors that, when remove, decreases the error.
• If no such point is found, pruning is not permormed

• Evaluate the relation between cost of adding a new sensor and the error reduction achieved to select the best option

Initialize a solution with a set of sensors

Specific Objective

To identify enablers for the development of crop irrigation management systems in low connectivity areas, favoring their possible implementation and informed decision-making.

Progress in the Literature Review Stage

• Presentation at the Thematic Session: Agriculture and Food Security, as part of the Young Scientists Networks Days of the EU-LAC Foundation.
• Participation in the Knowledge Agoras of the International Fair of the Electrical Sector (FISE) 2022.
• Organizer and speaker at the Cross-Cut Dialogues session: "Smart Agriculture as a Change Agent in the Transition to Sustainable Food Production" within the International Research Network Inhabiting the Cities of the Future (REHVIF).
• Speaker at the first International Conference of the Research Network Facing the Transition, held in Mexico City, 2022. Organized by the International Research Network Inhabiting the Cities of the Future (REHVIF).
• Author of Chapter 15 "Microgrids and Food Security" in the book "Microgrids & Energy Transition" of project 08 of Energy 2030.
• Author of Technical Report 17 "Smart Agriculture Module Integrated into Microgrids" presented as part of project 08 "Microgrid Proof of Concept in Colombia" of the Energy 2030 Strategic Alliance.