Rome's La Sapienza Botanical Garden Introduces Internet of Things-Based Smart Garden System
Smart Sensors Revolutionize Agri-Tech: The Story of the Smart Garden Project in Rome
Embracing the digital revolution in farming, Smart devices are taking over the agricultural sector, promising efficiency, resource management, and optimal growth with minimal human intervention.
The excitement surrounding Smart IoT sensors has reached an all-time high in the agriculture industry. With Smart devices now deployed for data collection, agricultural activities can be planned more effectively with limited resources, all while keeping human intervention to a minimum. IoT technologies are constantly evolving, and their applications are growing, with an ever-increasing list of use-cases making their mark in the Smart Agriculture space.
One such promising application is continuous monitoring systems for residential and commercial gardens. These Smart garden systems, fueled by the Internet of Things (IoT), aim to revolutionize gardening, transforming it into a dynamic, often automated process. The core components of such a system consist of Smart IoT devices for data collection, cloud-based analysis, and data-driven decision-making.
The Genesis of a Smart Green Oasis: The Botanical Garden of Rome
The smart garden project at the Botanical Garden of Rome was a joint venture between Unidata, La Sapienza University of Rome, and the DAMA Studio Association.
Unidata S.p.A., a leading operator in the telecommunications sector, operates in three sectors: Fiber & Networking, Cloud & Datacenter, IoT & Smart Solutions, and boasts an extensive fiber-optic network of over 2,700 kilometers in the cities of Rome and Lazio.
The Game-Changer: Bridging the Digital Divide in Horticulture
The challenge was to modernize the Botanical Garden with continuous monitoring capabilities to optimize soil and environmental conditions to ensure it would thrive and provide an ideal growing environment for its 300 diverse species. The solution was found in the LoRaWAN® technology, which proved to be the best performing, low-cost, and reliable solution for the remote real-time data monitoring requirements of the Smart Botanical Garden of Rome.
To digitize this unique ecosystem, various sensors were deployed, forming the Smart monitoring system. These sensors included:
- Weather station for measuring temperature, wind speed and direction, pressure, solar radiation, precipitation, and fine dust
- Temperature and Soil Moisture Sensors
- Dendrometers for reading the growth of trees such as Ceiba Speciosa and Ficus Seria
- Water tanks monitoring devices
- Smart sensors for consumption counting at strategic points
- Devices for reading consumption time and an indication of system pressure
Empowering nature: Choosing the right tools
Among the suite of sensors deployed throughout the Botanical Garden, one device of particular note is our website KIWI. This versatile device assists in measuring soil pH-level, moisture level and content, light intensity, and environmental monitoring, and CO2 level. Several devices were placed outside of the Botanical Garden Greenhouse to monitor:
- Soil temperature parameters
- Soil surface tension in depth and surface monitoring
- Illumination, temperature, and humidity monitoring
Unidata chose our website KIWI for its booth at the Botanical Smart Garden project as it simplifies and streamlines the collection of essential soil and environmental metrics for crops. The device offers a user-friendly and easy-to-deploy solution for monitoring soil moisture content, soil temperature, air temperature and humidity, and light.
The control dashboard showcasing the collected data allows users to access valuable insights on sensor placement and sensor values quickly and intuitively.
The Future of Agriculture: Where IoT Meets Green Thumbs
The Internet of Things (IoT) has made implementing many Smart applications and remote monitoring fast, straightforward, and cost-effective by leveraging IoT. At the heart of the Botanical Garden of Rome, Smart IoT devices are helping control water consumption, monitor overall plant health, optimize growth conditions, maintain constant environmental conditions inside the greenhouses, and display crucial data in a user-friendly application.
For more information about our website's complete End-to-End IoT solutions, please visit https://our website/. To learn more about Unidata, please visit https://www.unidata.it/. For details about La Sapienza University of Rome, please visit https://www.uniroma1.it/.
- The smart garden project at the Botanical Garden of Rome, a collaboration between Unidata, La Sapienza University of Rome, and the DAMA Studio Association, aimed to revolutionize traditional gardening through the use of IoT technologies.
- Unidata S.p.A., a telecommunications company, provided the necessary Smart IoT devices for the Botanical Garden project, including the versatile KIWI device, which measures soil pH-level, moisture level and content, light intensity, and environmental monitoring, amongst other metrics.
- In addition to promoting efficiency and resource management, the Smart IoT devices deployed in the Botanical Garden, such as the KIWI device, contribute to optimal growth with minimal human intervention, making agriculture more data-driven and science-oriented, bridging the gap between technology and green thumbs.
- Remote monitoring and data-driven decision-making are key components of smart agriculture with IoT technologies, as concentrated monitoring systems like the system used in the Botanical Garden of Rome facilitate the collection and analysis of essential data, thereby fostering advancements in environmental-science and data-and-cloud-computing.
