Digital Village Initiative: A Step Forward to 4.0 IR – Daily Sun

Digital Village Initiative: A Step Forward to 4.0 IR – Published in Daily Sun

Md Roshidul Hasan

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, or 4IR, refers to the oncoming revolutionary era in which information and communication technology (ICT) will converge. The revolution will spark new technological innovations in six areas: artificial intelligence, robotics, Internet of things (IoT), unmanned vehicles, three-dimensional printing, and nanotechnology. Those are completely coupled with Sensors, Internet Connectivity, and Big data. The 4IR will include a variety of new technologies that use big data to incorporate the physical, biological, and digital worlds in a way that will affect all sectors of life.There are three means by which the 4IR will have a major impact on the agricultural sector. First, precise optimisation will solve many current problems in agriculture. In terms of worldwide food production, enough food is produced for the entire population, yet 30–50% of produced food is discarded. Second, the reversion of rural production elements, including human resources, will have a major impact on agriculture. Capital, labour, and technological resources that left farming villages in previous generations are likely to return during the 4IR. Third, 4IR technologies will have a significant impact on weather-related problems. Agriculture is heavily affected by the management and production-related issues especially inputs measurements, disease, pest & insect-related issues for the agricultural management. Changes in agricultural production in the 4IR will occur primarily in agricultural facilities with smart farming technology.In response to this trend, future agriculture is expected to evolve into high-tech industries where systems are coupled with sensors-connectivity, artificial intelligence and big data.In view of the current state of agriculture in Bangladesh and taking full advantage of the new generation of 4.0 IR design ideas, the project built a modern, fully functional, modern Digital-Village system for Bangladesh. This project integrated computer control, centralised control management, network, multimedia technology, sensor technology, multiple display methods and big data analysis technologies to realise the construction of Bangladesh Digital-Village project IoT to promote the development of Bangladesh Rural Internet of Things (IoT). The main construction goals are as follows:

1. Use computing and big data technology to build models, and through agricultural and livestock experts’ research, propose a better plan for the development of agriculture and livestock in Bangladesh.

2. Utilise information and communication technologies to reduce input costs in agriculture and livestock and maximise output.

3. Develop low-cost agricultural smart handheld devices that integrate sensors in the agricultural sector.

4. Expand marketing channels for farmers and herdsmen to help them increase their income under appropriate marketing programmes.5. Establish advanced and effective breeding skills and hands-on training guidance;

6. Expand the career channels of farmers and herdsmen;

7. Promote the education of farmers and herdsmen and the promotion of ICT;

8. Establish an interactive relationship between farmers and herdsmen and agricultural experts to make it easier for farmers to acquire knowledge to solve problems.

Through the improvement of farmers’ ideas, skills and tools, it will ultimately increase agricultural production, reduce disasters, and effectively improve the benefits of farmers.

How to build Digital Village System

The system construction of the Bangladesh Digital-Village project mainly includes the construction of the IOC, the construction of the Internet of Things laboratory, the construction of the agricultural IoT system at the village station, the construction of the livestock IoT system at the village station, the village station service and the construction of the integrated smart agricultural IoT hardware platform.

The construction of the Bangladesh Digital-Village project follows the latest ICT information system architecture, from bottom to top:

Village station construction: Including agricultural IoT system (terminal, soil and air integrated sensor), a husbandry IoT system (Cow estrus&health monitor, Gateway), village station services (Soil comprehensive detector, pasteurizer, office information construction), a fisheries subsystem (DO, ROC, Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite, Automated Feeding, etc) . This construction has enabled the monitoring and transmission of agricultural data, and has provided necessary information and supporting services for farmers and herdsmen.

IOC construction: Including multimedia conference system, integrated sensor information display system, security access control system and computer room system. To achieve IOC daily information office and security, and real-time visual display of agriculture data, remote control, remote guiding and information publishing.

IoT Lab Construction: Including crop IoT System, Livestock IoT System, validation hardware platform of agricultural IoT. Through Bangladeshi crop and livestock experts, we will propose better solutions to the development of crop and livestock, and the validation hardware platform of agricultural IoT will help experts learning and scientific research on Internet of Things technology has promoted the development of the integrated circuit industry in Bangladesh. Integrated smart Agricultural IoT hardware Platform: Including data warehouse construction, big data analysis model construction, platform data services. Provide a comprehensive centralised data service for the system. Application scenario diagram is as follows:

Agricultural Internet of Things

Supported by multi-information collection methods such as Internet of Things technology and mobile Internet technology, we will set up 100 rural agricultural IoT platforms in Bangladesh to enhance the application level of agricultural wisdom in Bangladesh and play an exemplary role in promoting the development of agricultural informatisation in Bangladesh. The main features include:

1. Agricultural environment monitoring: including air parameter monitoring and soil parameter monitoring, mainly responsible for the collection of data such as air temperature and humidity, light intensity, soil temperature and humidity, carbon dioxide concentration, soil pH, and other sensory index data for crop, livestock and Fisheries, processing, publishing, and querying. The user can view the monitoring data of the corresponding area on the platform, including real-time monitoring of the environment, data query, data display and so on.

2. Dairy cow physiological monitoring: realise cow heat detection, improve pasture reproduction rate. Reduce manual observation loopholes, increase enterprise efficiency livestock.

2. Fisheries Management System: Dissolve Oxygen, ROC, Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite, Automated Feeding, etc. for proper fisheries management to increase fish production and reduce the production cost.

4. Agricultural Service Stations: The project will upgrade 10 basic agricultural service stations in 100 rural villages in Bangladesh, enhance the basic environment of information-based office work, and coordinate the use of hardware equipment and software platforms. This upgrade is aimed at realising the services of agricultural and pastoral service stations for farmers in Bangladesh, allowing farmers to experience the development of agricultural diversification brought about by the intelligent application of agricultural internet of things.

The Agricultural Internet of things platform has the functions of spatial distribution, environmental monitoring, video monitoring, and growth monitoring. Platform development includes environmental monitoring components, video surveillance components, data service components and other components library. The post – network platform will master the process information of agricultural production in Bangladesh in real time, and realise the “real-time perception – remote transmission – artificial analysis – comprehensive display” of agricultural production. Sharing data with Bangladesh Agricultural data centre through data interaction. Using IOT technology, platform application, mobile terminal APP application, and so on, it provides operation platform and application interface for service station, production base, scientific research, farmer, expert and so on.

System composition diagram is as follows:

There are several scenarios for the sensor data collected by the ambient sensor monitoring system. In the first scenario, the farmer or the expert holds the soil nutrient analyser/ air analyser to collect the on-site environmental data and transmit it to the integrated smart agricultural IoT hardware platform through the wireless network in the back clip. The second scenario is that the environment data and video data collected by the Online Multi-sensor agricultural automatic measuring instrument are directly transmitted to the integrated smart agricultural IoT hardware platform through the wireless network. The third scenario is dairy farming and livestock. Data is collected from Cow estrus&health monitors to collect data on the amount of movement and estrus monitoring of dairy cows, and then transmitted to the integrated smart agricultural IoT hardware platform through a wireless network. The fourth scenario is the analysis of milk composition data and pasteurization detection data, uploaded to the integrated smart agricultural IoT hardware platform via wireless network.

The on-site video monitoring system is connected in real-time through the wireless network and integrated smart agricultural IoT hardware platform, and the platform can remotely access and view video images through the Internet.

All data is transmitted to the integrated smart agricultural IoT hardware platform. Users can access the platform information through computers or mobile terminals, including environmental data viewing, comprehensive display viewing, on-site monitoring and viewing.

The agricultural IoT platform adopts the MVC layered design model. It is based on a multi-tiered architecture that conforms to the J2EE standard, and implements the information exchange between the platform and the device under the B/S architecture.

The agricultural IoT platform integrates sensor acquisition, communication transmission, data processing and information display. It is an intelligent, accurate, and visualised IoT facility agricultural production management and information display platform.

The writer is Professor, Dept. of Computer Science and Information Technology, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University