Best of Sensors Expo Award for Waspmote

Waspmote, the sensor device developed by Libelium, was awarded with a "Best of Sensors Expo" mention under the category of Data Acquisition. Members of jury distinguished the modularity of its design, low consumption and easy integration with other systems thanks to its API open source.

This product precision farming allows remotely monitor up to 14 environmental parameters in a wireless sensor network: air temperature, relative humidity, air and soil temperature, soil moisture, leaf moisture, atmospheric pressure, solar radiation, diameter trunk / stem / fruit, wind speed, wind direction and precipitation. The head of R & D Libelium, David Gascon, states that "with this product precision farming can measure the effectiveness of irrigation, crop growth and micro-climatic conditions, detecting adverse weather events.

This new product works Waspmote technology, a wireless sensory device powered by batteries which can integrate more than 30 different sensors to monitor all types of environments. Among the applications that can be done with it include safety, environment, agriculture, industrial control, automation, mining, energy and livestock. The acquired data can be sent wirelessly to 12 miles away using the ZigBee protocol or stored on the device with a capacity of up to 21 million samples. Waspmote has low energy consumption and may be powered by renewable energy such as solar panels, which can be used in hostile environments such as detection of forest fires or flooding of rivers and environmental monitoring in remote locations. Through GPRS and GPS modules can be done to send alerts to mobile phones and get the exact location of the device.

Precision agriculture is to optimize the production taking into account local variations of soil and climate. David Gascon said, "This new board allows the vineyards are controlled with a finer granularity than other solutions existing precision farming." He explains that "the precise dendrometers capable of measuring variations in the trunk of a few microns, enabling the measurement of irrigation water intake of each individual vineyard which allows to control the type of wine that will result in levels of water and sugar in the grape. By using a sensor PAR (photosynthetic active radiation) control conditions for photosynthesis. " The sensory pleasure of Agriculture apply to greenhouses, where the creation of microclimates is important for the growth of sensitive species such as exotic fruits. For production of mushrooms and mushroom, the joint use of plates of Agriculture and Gas Waspmote possible to measure and control moisture and soil temperature, CO2 level and temperature.

Another application of this board Sensory Agriculture is the optimization of water to irrigate fields. Local variations in soil, drainage and evaporation makes the process of irrigation (fertigation) is not uniformly effective. For example, you may be taken in a vineyard vines with water deficit while other strains saturated irrigation. To put three leaf wetness sensors in three different depths, we can evaluate the local water retention. By measuring the evapotranspiration can determine how much irrigation water is being absorbed by plants. In addition, using data from the sensors to automatically adjust irrigation to save water current conditions, and is something equally applicable to vineyard, greenhouse, golf courses. Avoid saturation of water also helps prevent certain diseases such as fungi or bacteria, which favor wet environments.

Finally, this board also supports sensory meteorological sensors and an air thermometer, hygrometer, anemometer, wind vane and rain gauge. If the temperature drops below a certain threshold, the heating system can be activated by the wireless sensor network. The meteorological sensors can trigger alerts in case they happen rain or events such as hurricane force winds. Waspmote values need not monitor continuously and can spend long periods of time at a energy saving mode, however, if the wind exceeds a threshold, the anemometer will send a signal to wake up to the plate Waspmote. Waspmote hibernation consumes 0.7 microamps of current, so the battery can last for several years.

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