In the greenhouse, the seedlings are growing healthily. In addition to the sensors, there are staff members in the greenhouse. This is a modern agricultural cooperative located in Xujia Town, Dujiangyan City, Chengdu (China). The person in charge, Kuai Shijun, was sitting in the office and looked at the data leisurely. "This year's seedlings are growing well."
But in the past, there were other scenes. Kuai Shijun not only needed to go back and forth to the greenhouse every day, to check the situation on-site, but also to be worried because of the bad weather from time to time. "Running to the site every day was very tiring", Kuai Shijun said.
That changed three years ago. Kuai used high-tech to make use of the convenience brought by modern agriculture. “In the past, planting relied on experience, now it relies on data and the Internet of Things.”
Internet of Things "replaces" traditional labor model
The person who helped Kuai Shijun to solve the "problem" was Han Haitao, an Internet of Things engineering technician. The system he designed measures a range of inputs, including air temperature and humidity, lighting, soil temperature and humidity.
“Previously we used thermometers and hygrometers to manually measure environmental and soil data, and then judge whether it is necessary to irrigate according to experience. Now, all can be done through the Internet of Things system”, Han said. With the sensors, data can be collected in real-time and uploaded to the server for processing. If irrigation is needed, the system will issue a message to remind the person in charge, who just needs to perform the remote operation in the app on his PC or mobile phone. After receiving the instruction, the system will irrigate according to the set relevant value and doesn’t need workers to be on-site to operate.
“Remote and automated agricultural production and management have greatly improved production efficiency and saved costs”, Han said.
“After seeing the dashboard, you can quickly complete irrigation with one click. In the past, this often took a lot of effort to complete, and intelligent IoT applications are changing all walks of life.” Han Haitao believes that the role of IoT engineers is to make people's production and life more convenient and intelligent.