Propagation Analysis for Wireless Sensor Networks Applied to Viticulture

Wireless sensor networks have been proposed as a solution to obtain soil and environment information in large distributed areas. The main economic activity of the São Francisco Valley region in the Northeast of Brazil is the irrigated fruit production. The region is one of the major agricultural reg...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Felipe Pinheiro Correia, Marcelo Sampaio de Alencar, Waslon Terllizzie Araújo Lopes, Mauro Soares de Assis, Brauliro Gonçalves Leal
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Hindawi Limited 2017-01-01
Series:International Journal of Antennas and Propagation
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2017/7903839
Description
Summary:Wireless sensor networks have been proposed as a solution to obtain soil and environment information in large distributed areas. The main economic activity of the São Francisco Valley region in the Northeast of Brazil is the irrigated fruit production. The region is one of the major agricultural regions of the country. Grape plantations receive large investments and provide good financial return. However, the region still lacks electronic sensing systems to extract adequate information from plantations. Considering these facts, this paper presents a study of path loss in grape plantations for a 2.4 GHz operating frequency. In order to determine the position of the sensor nodes, the research dealt with various environmental factors that influence the intensity of the received signal. It has been noticed that main plantation aisles favor the guided propagation, and the vegetation along the secondary plantation aisles compromises the propagation. Diffraction over the grape trees is the main propagation mechanism in the diagonal propagation path. Transmission carried out above the vineyard showed that reflection on the top of the trees is the main mechanism.
ISSN:1687-5869
1687-5877