New Concept of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) based on the Existing Perception for Monitoring Rice-Paddy Health

A wireless sensor network (WSNs) is a technology that can monitor physical changes especially when the region of interest has a large area. This research presents a new concept for monitoring rice-paddy health using WSNs for precision agriculture. The proposed concept applies Plant-Microbial Fuel Cell (P-MFC) principle for harvesting electrical energy to supply a sensor node. At the same time, the photosynthesis perception of rice plants is carried out through the existing perception available in the electrodes of the energy harvesting (EH) system. Experiments have shown that the proposed concept can realize EH at 1.011 mW/m2 and can sense changes in the photosynthesis of rice plants without the need to install an external light sensor. To achieve lifetime concern of an energy storage, supercapacitors are proposed instead of lithium batteries. According to the experimental results, charging current of supercapacitors can reach at 0.374 µAh/m2.