The Internet of Things (IoT) is seen as a tech innovation concerned with consumer products. But does it have a wider application, helping us to innovate in agriculture and other socially important uses? We look at MultiTech’s partnership with Porta Nova, and how they applied IoT tech to cultivating roses.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept and technological advance increasingly catching on in the world of product development. The analysts Gartner that 8.4 billion IoT devices were being used in 2017 and this is likely to reach 20.4 billion in 2020. Much of this growth is centred in consumer products, like smart electric meters and security cameras, say Gartner.
But the IoT has a much broader application than product development. It can help produce more agriculture. All experts predict that the global population will need new agricultural techniques to feed itself as well as maintain agriculture for pleasure. ‘Smart farming’ means that systems are put in place to monitor crops using sensors and automated irrigation systems.
Farmers can monitor conditions from a distance. Wastage and failure, though these techniques, can be reduced to a minimum. Applied to agriculture, the IoT is highly efficient and more sustainable than conventional approaches.
One example of how the IoT has been leveraged to help with agriculture is the company Porta Nova.
Porta Nova is a nursery in the Netherlands specialising in the cultivation of top-quality roses. Although the product of a recent merger, the company has roots dating back decades. It grows the much-coveted Red Naomi rose. In partnership with MultiTech Systems, the company has used IoT to regulate and develop its complex agricultural techniques.
MultiTech designs, develops and manufactures communications equipment for the industrial Internet of Things – connecting physical assets to business processes to deliver enhanced value. It has a strong commitment to quality and service excellence, with a history innovative products and practices. It partners with businesses to implement technology to transform quality, productivity and efficiency.
“Implementing technologies that help its greenhouses has always been a priority, but new IoT technologies available today are introducing new growth scenarios they never before thought possible,” says Leon Dukker, Managing Director of Porta Nova.
Porta Nova’s challenges began with monitoring the horizontal temperature distribution within their greenhouses. They required sensors that were not affected by solar interference to ensure correct measurements and to get the maximum production per square meter. They also needed sensors that were precise enough to detect a fire, fine-tuned to go off at the first sign of smoke.
According to marketresearch.biz, the floriculture market is projected to reach a value of $103.9 billion (US dollars) in 2026 at a CAGR of 5.0% over the forecast period, with the market in Europe accounting for highest revenue share. This rapid growth is due to the increasing consumption of floriculture products in the countries such as Switzerland, Netherland and Denmark.
Realising this market opportunity in conjunction with its past greenhouse success, closing the business to introduce the new technology was not an option.
After considering several solutions, Porta Nova opted for a simple and open universal platform that allowed them to receive data from four critical environmental conditions: temperature, humidity, CO2 and light intensity all using solar powered wireless sensors.
Developed by Technolution and equipped with an IoT gateway from MultiTech, the new ‘Sense2Grow platform’ utilised the power of the LoRaWAN protocol to receive fine-grained data on all their critical conditions. Now, the growers at Porta Nova have access to the kind of information they need to optimise the climate in the greenhouse, resulting in better quality, production, and savings.
“Technolution’s new Sense2Grow system and Multi-Tech’s IoT gateway has provided us with a complete IoT chain: sensor nodes, communication to cloud, central data storage, central device management, data presentation, even installation support,” said Dukker.
“We now have access to all the information we need in the format we choose. Our sensor data is presented to us via colored heat maps – it’s an ideal format for us to review this kind of information.”
Neil Carey, Regional Sales Director at MultiTech Systems, added:
“The installation of Technolution’s innovative platform within Porta Nova’s greenhouses demonstrates the benefits of combining sensor and LoRa technologies to capture vital, hard-to-reach information without relying on unpredictable cellular coverage.
“MultiTech’s MultiConnect Conduit is the industry’s most configurable, manageable, and scalable LoRa gateway and was ideally suited for the Sense2Grow platform. We are proud to be part of a solution that further reinforces the power, impact and potential of Smart Farming.”
Technolution’s Sense2Grow industrial IoT solution is not limited to agriculture, as it connects sensors to generate data that can be used to manage and monitor business processes for a wide variety of industrial use.
“Simply put, it converts data into information, giving you a better and more up-to-date picture of your business practices. This can yield new insights on how to improve and renew your business practices,” said Olaf Peters, System Architect at Technolution.
The Sense2Grow system implements data as a service, where the customer owns the data. In most situations, sensor data is forwarded to third parties for domain specific analysis and presentation. Raw sensor data can also be inspected in the Sense2Grow web dashboard.
“The installation of Technolution’s innovative platform within Porta Nova’s greenhouses demonstrates the benefits of combining sensor and LoRa technologies to capture vital, hard-to-reach information without relying on unpredictable cellular coverage,” said Carey.
“MultiTech’s MultiConnect Conduit is the industry’s most configurable, manageable, and scalable LoRa gateway and was ideally suited for the Sense2Grow platform. We are proud to be part of a solution that further reinforces the power, impact and potential of Smart Farming.”
The new system has allowed Porta Nova to raise the quality of their product as well as increasing their sustainability and corporate responsibility activities – at their newest location their only use green energy and their pesticides are near exclusively organic. It’s a win-win for the company, for customer and for the environment.
