Internet of Things - Propagation modelling for precision agriculture applications

The ubiquitous deployment of IEEE 802.11 based Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) has facilitated non-real-time applications effectively to date. However the advancement in IEEE 802.15.4 Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technology has dramatically increased the volume and range of applications available under the umbrella of the Internet of Things (IoTs). Such applications cross the divide of simple environmental data collectors to highly specific multimedia real-time applications demanding high Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees. However delivering QoS guarantees is difficult to achieve when deployed in a hostile environment such as that found in the Precision Agriculture (PA) industry. Difficulties in wireless propagation attenuation delivers an uncertainty to the network design phase. Therefore the motivation of this research is a requirement for real-time characterisation and derivation of suitable propagation models to support network design and deployment planning. In this work, empirical results were collected from a heterogeneous wireless deployment (the real-world ECOMESH test-bed) in a native woodland environment. We derive two empirical models which can be utilised in predicting attenuation network performance in two different scenarios. These models deliver the first phase of a Dynamic Network Management System for maintaining QoS guarantees in heterogeneous wireless networks.