Sensing Systems for Precision Agriculture

Precision agriculture (PA) is becoming a staple part of the current primary sector. PA systems are comprised of different elements that allow monitoring variability in different agricultural parameters, transmitting data, and performing data storage and analysis. Sensing systems for PA focus primarily in acquiring all the information the PA system needs to gain knowledge of the state of the fields, the crops, the weather, or the available resources. All this information is key to providing farmers with predictions and suggestions to improve the quality and quantity of the produce as well as to aid in increasing the sustainability of agriculture. This chapter details the current state of sensing systems for PA from its evolution as a topic of research interest to the future trends to be expected in the next few years. Moreover, an overview of an architecture of a PA sensing system with complete functionalities is provided, as well as an overview of the sensing devices and technologies available for each PA domain.