# IoT-Enabled Precision Agriculture: Developing an Ecosystem for Optimized Crop Management
## 3 Overview of Precision Agriculture
### Precision Agriculture Applications  
For example, an application such as horse monitoring is essential for several reasons, such as horses being prone to sudden illnesses such as colic, which can be fatal. Therefore, monitoring horses remotely and constantly is essential to be aware of their condition and function as quickly as possible in an emergency. For this task, WSNs play a decisive role, allowing owners and/or breeders to monitor the vital signs and anxiety of the horses or the stable environmental conditions that can influence the horses' comfort.  
The utilization of WSN technology for farm animal monitoring has received considerable research attention. Research has focused on monitoring the behavioral preferences of cattle using a combination of GPS, satellite imagery, and WSNs. Wireless sensor technology has been used for horses to analyze gait (to identify lameness) and detect foaling time. Monitoring cows and pasture time on a new grass strip using Zigbee technology has already been addressed [47].  
IoT systems for horse management, which is a WSN-based system that provides a solution for equine real-time monitoring, allows farmers to access and evaluate vital health signs and behavioral and environmental measurements remotely while being connected to the Internet. In addition to monitoring, the system comprises additional functionalities (i.e., registering and alerting and remote video streaming). Many sensors have been developed in recent years for such horse stables; these sensors can be used to monitor various conditions. The following are some mobility-support sensors that can be used for horse monitoring: (1) motion sensors; (2) blood pressure sensors; (3) heartbeat sensors; (4) colic sensors [48; 49].  
Figure 1: Proposed IoT system model for precision agriculture, showing the relationship between various entities such as sensors, network-enabling technologies, and agricultural resources for real-time monitoring and control.  
A commercially available sensor board can be used to use these sensors. For example, some boards support up to 16 sensor plugs on the same board, which can help create a single node that can measure many physical parameters [50; 51; 52; 53].  
A second practical example is IoT for olive trees, which integrates IoT devices to manage irrigation, fertilization, and pest control on plant structures. This system helps to detect the disease in its early stages and the risk of the disease spreading in the field by determining the right amount and time of additional olive tree irrigation and tree changes caused by agricultural pests. The system relies on temperature and humidity sensors on the ground and cameras that take pictures of the trees. The data generated by these devices are sent to a database server through web services and analyzed. This system sends instructions to decide, such as the amount of irrigation and fertilization, the time to water, and the precise infection treatment.  
For example, Libelium's Waspmote Plug & Sense! Sensor Platform is a commercially available sensor board used for best control in an olive tree farm. For Example, Libelium's boards support up to 16 sensor branches on a single board so that a node can measure multiple parameters [29].