CSM4 Project

PJ Byrne – C00147424Damien Knox – C00150374

9th April 2014

ContentsExecutive Summary...................................................................................................................1

Introduction................................................................................................................................2

BUSSINESS SECTION.............................................................................................................3

Speak to Stakeholders.............................................................................................................3

Existing practices of Fertilizer................................................................................................3

Taking a soil samples.............................................................................................................3

Existing cost of fertilizer........................................................................................................4

The industry and area to be addressed....................................................................................4

Issues/Problems and Opportunities........................................................................................4

Existing Solutions...................................................................................................................5

Importance of Soil PH............................................................................................................6

SWOT ANALYSIS................................................................................................................7

FINANCIAL ANALYSIS......................................................................................................9

Business Section.......................................................................................................................10

Introduction..........................................................................................................................10

Financial Analysis................................................................................................................12

Website/App maintenance costs...........................................................................................13

Hardware maintenance costs................................................................................................13

Sensor Hardware and integration costs................................................................................14

Sensor Software and Base Station Software Costs...............................................................14

Database Setup Costs...........................................................................................................14

Advertising Costs.................................................................................................................14

Conclusion............................................................................................................................14

TECHNICAL SECTION.........................................................................................................15

TECHNICAL SOLUTION 1...............................................................................................15

HOBONODE........................................................................................................................15

Arduino.................................................................................................................................15

MicroStrain...........................................................................................................................16

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS........................................................................................17

Scalability and Flexibility.................................................................................................19

High Availability..............................................................................................................19

Open Source Freedom and 24 x 7 Supports.....................................................................19

Lowest Total Cost of Ownership......................................................................................20

Summary...............................................................................................................................25

Requirements for Solution 1....................................................................................................26

Technical Solution 2................................................................................................................27

The System...........................................................................................................................27

System Considerations.........................................................................................................28

Required Hardware and Software........................................................................................28

Sensors..............................................................................................................................28

Mobile Phone App............................................................................................................28

The website.......................................................................................................................29

The Database.....................................................................................................................30

Hosting..............................................................................................................................32

AWS (Amazon Web Services), S3 and CloudFront.........................................................33

Analysis....................................................................................................................................37

General Requirements of the Technical solution 1:.............................................................37

General Requirements of the Technical solution 2:.............................................................40

Technical Requirements.......................................................................................................41

Analysis/Evaluation.................................................................................................................42

ETHICAL SECTION...............................................................................................................43

Conclusion................................................................................................................................44

REFERENCES:........................................................................................................................45

Executive Summary

This project contains two technical solutions to achieving the goal of reducing and optimizing fertilizer practices on farms in Ireland. The project is broken in to three main sections.

Business section

The Business section contains a Financial Analysis of both solutions. The financial costing includes website, application and maintenance costs, System hardware costs, system software costs, integration costs and advertising costs. A SWOT analysis was also conducted. Existing solutions, the importance of Soil Ph. and soil moisture were also investigated. The industry to be addressed and existing cost of fertilizer was researched. From a marketing perspective, options are discussed on how the system would be advertised and distributed.

Technical Section

The technical solutions proposed discuss in detail the technical requirements behind each system.

Solution 1 consists of general requirements such as reading soil, uploading data, and viewing the data. The technologies used are Wi-Fi, PHP with MYSQL, and Database as a service “DaaS”.

Solution 2 enables the farmer to collect and analyse data pertaining to fertilization and use this data to streamline farming fertilization practices. The technologies used in this system include: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, “Daas”, Dynamic web and applications.

Ethical section

The ethical component to the overall system is the environmental benefits of reducing unnecessary fertilization. Therefore saving the over usage and wastage of finite materials. As government legislation already limits the use of fertilizer on Irish farms, this has a negative impact on existing farming practices, as fertilization is not being used correctly and appropriately in many cases throughout the country. The proposed system aims to rectify this by giving the farmers all the information they need to make the correct decisions about the fertilization practices. The benefits because of this solution is reduce damage to the eco-system, stop unwanted seepage into surrounding rivers and streams, and protect society as a whole.

Introduction

The project proposal we chose was to “reduce and optimize fertilizing practices in Ireland” with the aid of technology.

The growing trend in recent years has been using technology to enhance and support existing practices in all sectors of industry. The aim of this project is to apply these objectives in the agricultural industry. Using technology in this field can have a beneficial impact on farming processes and by extension, also have a positive effect on the environment. Examples of this would be:

1) Increased efficiency in fertilization. By using the proposed solutions, the information provided to the farmer enables him/her to make increasingly accurate decisions on issues such as the amount of fertilizer purchased each year, and the optimum type of fertilizer that should be distributed on the land in order to achieve maximum yield.

2) Cost BenefitsWith increased efficiency in fertilization this translates into cost savings for the farmer, as they are only purchasing the required amount and type of fertilizer needed for their land.

3) Reduced damage to the environmentBy implementing this system, it would ensure that the damage to the environment would be minimal due to the over usage of fertilizer. The seepage of toxins into natural streams and rivers and surrounding land would be drastically reduced thereby preserving the health of the eco-system.

Two different solutions were researched, both containing a combination of existing technologies. Both of the solutions are aiming towards helping the reduction of fertilizing land and optimizing its use when in practice.

Business Section 1Introduction: The following section contains in depth research to the business side of the proposed solution, the topics addressed are general research into findings such as how important Soil Ph. and Soil moisture are within the farming industry. A SWOT analysis of technical solution 1 was conducted and a financial analysis of technical solution 1.

Speak to StakeholdersAfter speaking with stakeholders about their fertilizing practices, there was a lot learned a lot from the conversations which gave a great insight to the methods they employ in order to determine how they fertilize their land and how it is distributed across their land. The method focused on was chemical fertilization, because of the disadvantages it has on the environment.Some examples of chemical fertilizer:

Calcium (C) Ammonium (A) Nitrate (N) CAN Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K) NPK

The following headings were spoken about while talking to the farmers.

Existing practices of Fertilizer.With both research and speaking to farmers, it was found that they test their soil perhaps twice a year if you are really concerned about it, but really suggest you do it at least once every three years. The test results should be easily available to you so that you can monitor any changes in soil fertility. You may want to test more often if you have a problem with the land or if you have applied a lot of nutrients to it. People regularly test their soil in order to save some money on fertilizer and not just throwing it away so to speak. Basically how often you should test your soil really depends on what value you place on the crop.

Taking a soil samples. “How to take a good soil sample?”

The first instruction was to use a clean instrument to take a sample of the soil. The option of taking samples in different spots of the field is acceptable, but most farmers take soil samples in the shape of a W throughout the field. Proper measurements need to be taken approximately 3 to 4 inches down into the sod in a field. Gather the sample in a clean container. So with these soil samples taken they are sent to Johnstown Castle in county Wexford. This is Ireland’s leading research centre for soils and the rural environment. The centre are experts at research on soils, nutrient efficiency, recovery and losses, air and water quality, the agricultural environment and agro-ecology. The research results generated are used widely by advisors, farmers, scientists and policy makers. Johnstown Castle has state-of-the-art laboratory facilities in order to support the research programme with soil, water, plant, air and microbiological analyses.

Existing cost of fertilizerThe farmers that were spoken to had given good information as to how the fertilizer is sold. Most suppliers sell a range of fertilizers both straight and compound in the following order. Suppliers sell the fertilizer to farmers in 50kg bags, 500kg bags and 1tonne bags, with some research done on the cost of fertilizer form different suppliers a conclusion was reached that the average cost of fertilizer per tonne being approximately €600. It was hard to find this average as there is a vast range of fertilizers that can be sold as straight/compound and varied in quantity. Farmers tend to buy in bulk and more than often buy the 1tonne bag due to the size of farmers land in the local area. They would rather buy in bulk and store the fertilizer themselves rather than trek to and from the suppliers.

The industry and area to be addressedThe farming industry in Ireland encompasses a huge part of the economy. Fertilizer used by farmers in Ireland could possibly have a detrimental effect on the environment, be it the unnecessary overuse of fertilizers or the accidental releasing of toxins into streams and rivers. This project aims to implement a system where farmers can have as much information as they need in order to fertilize their land in the most efficient manner. The balance of soil nutrients is a very important factor in fertilization. Too much of a particular nutrient can be just as bad as not having enough nutrients. The system being proposed by this project uses sensors in the ground which detect various soil readings. These readings are then uploaded to a database. This will give the farmer the information he/she needs in order to fertilize their land to the optimum levels. This has a positive effect on both the financial side and on the environmental side. If less fertilizer is used, or the fertilizer is used in the correct areas, the less chance of unnecessary waste and the less chance of contaminating nearby water supplies.

Issues/Problems and OpportunitiesIssues within the area being looked at are, over usage of fertilizers, pollution of natural water springs. It doesn’t matter if fertilizers are artificial or organic, they can cause serious problems if they contaminate freshwater and marine ecosystems. The same nutrients that nourish crops, in chemical fertilizers can cause a rapid growth of algae, and then this dying algae feeds bacteria, which in turn consumes so much of the dissolved oxygen in the water that fish and plants cannot survive. Some species of algae produce toxins which can be very harmful to humans. One major area to be addressed, and the biggest problems with using chemical fertilizers. Contaminated Nitrogen fertilizers break down into nitrates and travel easily through the soil. Because nitrogen is water-soluble and can remain in the groundwater for decades, as farmers are constantly making an addition of nitrogen to the soil over the years, it has an accumulative effect. By having a consistent Nitrogen rich soil base across each field, this can lead to an overall higher crop performance, which leads to cost savings and environmental savings. With some research it was found that “Groundwater contamination has been linked to gastric cancer, goitre, birth malformations, and

hypertension testicular cancer and stomach cancer” The outcome of this would only be positive and it would be of great benefit to farmers all over to know this information.

Existing SolutionsAfter some research online it was found that soil analysers are high in favour in today’s market for people who like to look after their gardens and particularly small land areas. They are easily obtained from the internet. A conclusion has been drawn, that the most common choice of equipment for recording soil readings is either the 3 in 1 or 4 in 1 soil analysers. Most of these devices measure the required information needed in order to keep your land in good order. Most of the devices record information like Soil PH Soil Moisture, Soil temperature, and light intensity but none are digitally shown on screen with the option of uploading or storing the gathered information to a database/website for fertilizer recommendations based on the readings. The cost of these 3 and 4 in 1 products range from as little as $20 right up to $200 depending on what you actually want the reader to do. Most popular according to Amazon was an electronic soil reader 4 in 1 at $25 which completed the following tasks:

• PH levels,

• Environment sunlight intensity,

• Moisture levels

• Temperature

The likes of this product is used in home gardening and small land areas and not really in the farming industry. Farmers send their soil samples to a laboratory such as Johnstown Castle in Wexford because they value their land a lot as this is their livelihoods they require accurate results. The product and service provided offer these accurate results on an electronic device with the possibility of storing them locally or uploading them to a database/Website so the farmer can check these multiple readings from his workstation. The product provided will be unique as there is no product that will take readings and integrate GPS into the equation, giving the farmer the location of his readings and fertilizer recommendations. Existing solutions are plentiful in the market today. The reason this area was chosen was the product provided will record soil moisture and soil pH levels is because these are vital parameters which decides the quality of a crop for the farmer. There no other electronic soil analyser that integrates both of these measurements.

[1] The importance of Soil Moisture• Soil water serves as a solvent and carrier of food nutrients for plant and crop growth• Soil water acts as a nutrient itself• Soil water regulates soil temperature• Microorganisms require water for their metabolic activities

• Soil water helps in chemical and biological activities of soil• Water is essential for photosynthesis

Importance of Soil PHCorrect soil pH is important in the farming industry as small bacteria inhabit the soil and they cannot survive in high acidic or alkaline soil. Without the bacteria certain by-products of the species higher in the food-chain such as faecal matter, and carcasses would not be broken down and made into usable nutrients for crop growth.

[2] Nutrients such as phosphorous, calcium, potassium, and magnesium are most available to plants when the soil pH is between 6.0 and 7.5. Under highly acid (low pH) conditions, these nutrients become insoluble and relatively unavailable for uptake by plants. High soil pH can also decrease the availability of nutrients. If the soil is more alkaline than pH 8, phosphorous, iron, and many trace elements become insoluble and unavailable for plant uptake.

SWOT AnalysisSTRENGTHS

Cost saving

[9] “The cost of soil testing is in the region of €1.25/ha/yr.”

The average cost of fertilizer per tonne being approximately €600. (CAN fertilizer)  Farms in Ireland with an average size of 32.7 hectares, so that prices is roughly €40.00.With soil samples taken as often as required by the farmer, mostly when there is a change in crop to be grown. Soil samples are roughly done once every year, but soil samples should also be taken if problems occur during the growing season.

Economic benefits of using the product. This product will be beneficial as it has the ability to determine what condition soil is in, giving the farmer an idea to what action should be taken. I.e. (spread more Nitrogen, potassium, calcium, ammonium) instead of throwing out all sorts of CAN or NPK bags onto the field.

Time saving. The ability to view the data when it is recorded and not have to wait for results from the laboratory. This usually takes up to 2-3weeks to get results back.

Mobility.The mobility factor is a strong point to the product as this enables the user to access data on the go. Via his tablet, phone or pc. He does not need to be at a specific location in order to access his results.

Speed.The speed of the readings, sensor reads soil within 2seconds.Ease of use, user friendly interface and easy interaction with software.On demand results.

WEAKNESSES

ExpenseThe expense of actually getting this product up and running will be a weakness.

WIFI range.Another weakness to the product is that the tablet must be within Wi-Fi range in order to upload the data, if this is not available, the data must be manually uploaded to the database via pc. Connect tablet to the pc and transfer the files physically.

ScalabilityThis solution might be beneficiary to the larger farmers in the country as it requires a lot of travelling if you have a large farm. The farmer must travel to the site in which he wishes to take soil readings. Famers with large farms won’t like this idea.

OPPURTUNITIES

[10] Number of farmers in Ireland. In 2012, the number of farms was 139,860. The number of people working on farms in Ireland was 272,016. This is a great number of potential customers. There is a great potential for money to be made if the farmers in Ireland were to get behind our product.

First mover advantage.

There is currently nothing in the market for tablets recording soil characteristics exactly like this solution does. After some research it was found that there are devices that can measure the characteristics of soil, but none record both soil ph. and moisture and upload them to the database via Wi-Fi.

THREATS

[11] The rising age of farmers.The CSO census of agriculture shows the average age of farmers in Ireland in 2012 was 54, compared to 51 in 2000. This would be a problem as this generation of people would not be as up-to-date with technology. And perhaps technology shy.

Product replacement.Seen as though our product will be first on the market there could be threat of competitors under cutting the solution proposed and perhaps offering a similar service for a cheaper price. Our product will set the benchmark as this will be the product everything will be compared to.

Financial AnalysisThis table represents the costs incurred in order for me to initially setup the company.In year 1 forecasted sale are 500 units, and in year 2 it is expected this number will increase to 1000 units.The monthly fee of €10 will be needed by the customer in order for continued use of the service.

Price of stock (X 500 UNITS in Y1 and 1000 X Y2)Tablet: €99Soil ph. Sensor: €101Soil moisture: €130Easy link adapter: €76

EQUIPMENT YEAR 1 YEAR 2Tablet €49,500 €99,000Soil Ph. sensors €50,500 €101,000Soil moisture sensors €65,000 €130,000Easy link adapters €38,000 €76,000WEBSITE €2,000 ONE OFF

PAYMENT-----------

HOSTING FREE €1226.40Software on tablet €5,000 ONE OFF

PAYMENT--------------

MAINTENANCE €2,400 €4,000ADVERTISING €1000 €2,000Monthly fee (users) €120 €120TOTAL €213,520 €413,346.40

This table below represents us selling the product.

Increase of price (X 500 UNITS in Y1 and 1000 X Y2)Tablet: €11Soil ph. Sensor €:9Soil moisture: €5Easy link adapter: €4EQUIPMENT YEAR 1 YEAR 2Tablet €55,000 €110,000Soil Ph. sensors €55,000 €110,000Soil moisture sensors €67,500 €135,000Easy Link adapters €40,000 €80,000TOTAL €217,500 €435,000

A profit of €3,980 is made after the first year of business.A profit of €21,653.60 is made after the second year of business.

Business Section 2

IntroductionThe following is an excerpt taken from the Irish Examiner Newspaper which highlights some of the problems farmers are experiencing with regards to fertilizer. As government legislation on the amounts of fertilizer allowed on farms means farmers are experiencing difficulties with their land because of this. These government regulations are having the negative effect of fodder deficits and highlight the need for farmers to be smart about fertilizing their land more than ever. With the optimisation of fertilizer spreading, the proposed solution will aid farmers in this respect.

[13]Teagasc has revealed in 2013 indications that farmers are turning their backs on fertiliser usage.

It seems incredible that a trend to apply less fertiliser has intensified this year, when more grass than ever is needed to avert another winter fodder crisis.

Nevertheless, Teagasc says nitrogen sales in the first half of the 2013 fertiliser year are down 16%, phosphorous sales are down 21%, and potassium sales are down 23%, compared to the corresponding period in 2012.

Attempting to explain the trend, Teagasc experts say conditions may have been poor for spreading fertiliser, or farmers may not have been able to pay the €300 per tonne bill for nitrogen, due to cash flow difficulties relating to the fodder crisis.

Maybe the Government announcement in May of a temporary adjustment of nitrates regulations came too late to overcome farmers’ fears of inspectors finding they had applied too much fertiliser.

Already, these regulations have left many farms short of enough phosphorous in the soil for optimum grass growing, despite farmers applying the maximum level allowable under the regulations.

Fertiliser and lime deficiencies can reduce grass production as much as 50%.

Even before this year, official figures showed lime usage has been cut back by 40% since 2003, and usage of P and K fertiliser was the lowest since the 1950s.

Nitrogen usage was at its lowest since 1983.

That fertiliser usage is still falling this year, when up to two-thirds of farmers are likely to have a fodder deficit of 23% on average, warrants serious investigation.

A kg of nitrogen fertiliser costs €1.20.

On dairy farms, it can grow additional grass from spring up to August that is worth between €3 and €10.

Perhaps it is on cattle farms that use is dwindling.

But they need grass also.

Maybe the average dairy or cattle farmer sees a point of diminishing returns, in a year when the estimated 30,000 tonnes of imported fodder cost them about €6 million; and average 2013 expenditure on concentrate feed will increase by 12% on dairy farms and 17% on cattle farms, compared to the already very high costs of 2012. Farmers who are trying to pay off big bills built up during the fodder crisis will be painfully aware of the sky-high costs of farming — even if high cattle and milk prices hold out the prospect of profit, as high as €900 per hectare this year in dairy farming, according to Teagasc.

Since 2000, agricultural output prices on Irish farms have climbed about 38%.

But the cost of the raw materials farmers use — mostly feed and fertiliser — has gone up about 50%.

Fatigue could be setting in for farmers on this cost-price squeeze treadmill.

If so, there was a glimmer of light this week, when fertiliser market analysts predicted a 25% slump in potash prices, due to the collapse of one of the two global marketing cartels for this vital soil nutrient.

Prices are expected to return to 2008 levels, after Russian and Belarusian manufacturers, who account for 43% of world potash exports, fell out.

An estimated $20bn was wiped off the share prices of leading potash companies across the world, in expectation of a price slump.

It could be just what Irish farmers need, to get interested again in increasing their fertiliser usage — if the price reduction ever filters down the fertiliser supply chain as far as them.

The proposed system aims to enable farmers to cut costs by deploying a system where the has continued ongoing access to the information he needs such as soil PH levels and soil moisture levels on all areas of his/her farm. This information, along with the type of crop the farmer intends to grow allows the system to generate a recommended usage level for a particular area and also the type of fertilizer needed in order to achieve maximum yield from their land.

There were 139,860 farms in Ireland as of 2012, so there is a huge opportunity for a system such as the proposed one to have success in this area. Even if the system were to start out being used by a small number of farmers, a comprehensive feedback and review section could be incorporated into the website and positive feedback could be used in advertising campaigns where farmers who have been using the system give a positive review, therefore making it more appealing to other farmers. In this industry, as Ireland is a relatively small area geographically, word of mouth will also be an important aspect in selling the system to the agricultural community. It is therefore very important that farmers are given the opportunity to voice their concerns over any part of the system they feel does not perform as well as is needed and also give valuable insight into features they would like incorporated into the system.

The proposed system aims to reduce the farmers costs by he/she can employ a build to demand model in regards to fertilizer rather than a build to inventory model which may mean that excess amounts of fertilizer are bought, but are not needed and are left lying in storage on the farm, or another scenario of this build to inventory model the farmer uses could be that the farmer spreads all of the fertilizer on the land regardless of the need for it. If the fertilizer amounts used by farmers could be reduced by 15-20% then this could potentially bring huge cost savings to the farmer depending on the size of the farm and the amount of fertilizer normally used on the land.

The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) operates an app marketplace called iFarm which houses apps which could be beneficial to farmers. If the proposed system were to be added to this marketplace, the system would have a much higher chance of being widely adopted than would otherwise be the case. The IFA could be approached in order to market the system in return for a percentage of the profits made. This would give the system high visibility in the farming sector and improve the chances of higher sales. A model where the IFA get 5% of the profits from the system when a certain sales level has been reached could be arranged in return for allowing the system onto the iFarm marketplace and also endorsement of the system wherever possible.

Financial AnalysisCosts year 1

Technology CostWebsite design €18,000-€20,000 once off paymentApp design €5,000 once off payment

Base station hardware €2,870 (€5.74 x 500)Base station software €2,000 once off paymenthosting(website, servers, database) €0 (free for 1st year)sensor hardware and integration costs €33,240 (€46.48 x 2,000) + (€10 x

2,000)26000,33800sensor software €2,000maintenance €5000 + €2880Total €67,990

Income

The system comes as standard with 4 nodes and a base station. This will cost €160 upfront. There is the option to purchase more nodes if needed at €30 each.

Year 1

Sales of system 500 x 300 = 150,000Monthly Fee for use of website/app features 500 x 10 = 5,000

Below is a cash flow statement for the first three years of the business

Cash Receipts Yr1 Yr2 Yr3Sales €150,000 195,000 253,500Monthly Fee €5,000 5,000 5,000Total Receipts €155,000 200,000 258,500

Cash PaymentsWebsite design €20,000 0 0App design €5,000 0 0Hosting Costs 0 271 352Base station hardware

€2,870 3,731

Base station software €2,000 0 0sensor hardware and integration costs

€112,960 146,848 190,902

sensor software €2,000 0 0Database setup cost €5,000Advertising costs €5,000 8,000 12,000Maintenance €7,880 9,380 11,330Total Payments €162,710 168,230 214,584

NCF €-7,710 €31,770 €43,916Opening balance €0 €-7,710 €24,060Closing balance €-7,710 €24,060 €67,976

Website/App maintenance costsEnterprise maintenance packages are available from globalvision.ie which offer up to 8hrs maintenance time per month. This service includes

- Full Testing after every edit and update- Full Backup copy of website- Monthly, detailed invoicing and reporting- Communication by phone or e-mail, 5 days a week.- Highly experienced service

This €240 per month with additional work costing €30 per hour.

240 x 12 = €2,880 per year

Hardware maintenance costsThe system comprises of hardware such as sensors, nodes and base station. These will inevitably break down at some point and maintenance costs will need to be included. It is estimated that €5000 per year should cover any costs incurred in repairing hardware. As the number of systems being sold rises, this cost will rise by the same amount e.g. if system sales rise by 30% each year, then the hardware maintenance costs also rise by 30% each year as the number of malfunctions are likely to rise. This is taken into account in the cash flow statement.

As advertising becomes more widespread, the system becomes more widely known and is likely to result in increased sales figures. An increase in sales of 30% per seems like a high assumption to make, but coupled with the fact that there were 139,860 farms in Ireland as of 2012 and the starting figure of 500 sales makes up approximately 0.04% of this figure, then there is huge scope for a massive increase in sales.

Sensor Hardware and integration costsThe price of the separate hardware components comes to €46.48 however; these components will need to be integrated into one system so an extra cost of €10 per node is taken into consideration. this makes the costs for the first year (46.48 x 500 x 4) + (10 x 500 x 4) and as the sales are projected to increase by 30% each year, that means that the 2nd years costs are (46.48 x 650 x 4) + (10 x 650 x 4) and the 3rd years costs are (46.48 x 845 x 4 + 10 x 845 x 4).

Sensor Software and Base Station Software CostsThis is the software that enables the data collected by the sensors to be routed to the base station and the software on the base station which enables the data to be stored in order to be uploaded at a later time via Bluetooth. €4,000 is set aside for this purpose.

Database Setup CostsThis is the initial setup of the database, including the equations used to calculate recommendations. €2,000 is set aside for this purpose.

Advertising CostsA budget of €5,000 for advertising is set aside. This is to be used in areas such as radio advertisements during farming shows on local radio stations such as KCLR and advertising in the local newspapers. These costs are going to rise each year to €8,000 in year 2 and €12,000 in year 3 as the system gets more widely known. When the system gets more widely known, positive reviews from farmers can be incorporated into the marketing campaign, which means farmers can view actual savings made by their fellow farmers. This tangible evidence of cost savings can only have a positive effect on the adoption rate of the system and as the system grows numbers-wise, more positive reviews can be made available to the public which will mean that the system is viewed in a positive light by farmers.

ConclusionFrom the projected figures above, the system will be profitable from the second year onwards; with profits rising each year if the expected sales figures are correct. However these figures must be treated with caution as some assumptions have been made which may turn out to be incorrect.

Technical Section

Technical Solution 2Introduction: The following section contains research on the technical solution 1; topics addressed are existing solutions that have similar impacts as our product. The requirements and technical solutions for the proposed product are tackled in this section of the overall project.

HOBONODE[3] One System that was came across while researching was “HOBO node”. HOBO node is a company that issues wireless sensors that monitor temperature and soil moisture conditions which can then transmit the data collected by the sensor nodes back to your Workstation. The sensors enable you to view the current conditions of the soil, and the data on your PC without having to run cables through the field or even leave the PC to check on the land. A Typical HOBO node system includes one HOBO node Wireless Repeater, One HOBO node Wireless Receiver and One or more HOBO node(s). This solution is a good example of what our product is trying to achieve, but our product has differentiated itself from this HOBO node as they only record Soil moisture and temperature, while our product will record Soil PH and Moisture levels and incorporate GPS into the system. The readings that the farmer takes will be located and will be available to him via Google maps in order form him to see where each sample has been taken from. This is a good business proposition as these devices are not inexistence and believe it would sell on the market. It would have to be taken into consideration that the users of this product might not be technology shy and could perhaps shun the idea. Using the device would not be difficult and it would be extremely user friendly.

Arduino

Conducting research, and looking at similar existing products, services, and operating systems. Arduino is not optimized for low-power operation. Arduino also has an awkward wake-up mechanism that makes difficult to do in-the-main service out from a low-power mode. Arduino can sense the environment by receiving an input from a range of sensors and it can also affect its surroundings by controlling lights or motors based on these external factors. The microcontroller on the board is programmed using Arduino’s very own programming language this is a. Arduino projects can be stand-alone or they can communicate with software running on a computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, and MaxMSP). This could be useful in our product as this is what is needed, Sensors that can communicate with software running on a PC in the background. Another company that has drawn our attention is MicroStrain, they produce Energy Harvesting Systems. They have Wireless sensor networks in place that are particularly involved in low energy products.

MicroStrainMicro Strain’s (WSN) enable simultaneous, high-speed sensing and data acquisition from multiple wireless strain gauges, accelerometers, temperature, and milli volt inputs. Their range of wireless sensing systems are ideal for both small scale applications requiring a few sensor nodes and large scale applications requiring hundreds of sensor nodes. This company has great potential in finding ideas as to how improve our product and offer the best service available to the customer.

[4] “Micro Strain wireless sensor nodes offer a streamlined solution for remote and embedded monitoring that eliminates the need to install or maintain wires. Our wireless nodes support a wide range of sensor types and packaging options, allowing users to quickly configure their optimal network. Furthermore, low-power designs are coupled with internal batteries, and optional energy harvesters, for long-term application.”

“Micro Strain” Energy Harvesting Systems is a leader in adaptive energy harvesting electronics for wireless sensor networks. Their innovative energy harvesting technologies enable ambient energy sources to power wireless sensor networks or the long term, without the need for battery replacement, using sophisticated harvesters for energy conversion.

Technical Requirements

Sensors and tablet: The tablet which will be a purchased will be then loaded with the required software designed for our system and written so the sensors connected to the tablet are compatible and can take the readings from the soil and show them on screen.

Developing the Software for the tablet is an expensive task, after some research it was found that the cost of the program to be written for our tablet would be in the region of €5000-€10000. The tablet configured with this software will respond to the readings taken on the sensor. The soil sensors been looked at are manufactured by a company called “Vernier” and has a cable with a sensor connector that plugs into distinctive sensor port built into the LABQUEST devices. With the aid of research it has been found that most of these LABQUEST products have a connection fit for a sensor port. These LABQUEST devices are currently on the market, “they collect, analyse, and share sensor data wirelessly on any device with a web browser”These types of sensors, with these different connectors will not be able to connect directly to the tablet, as the tablet chosen will mainly have a USB mini port for charging the tablet along with connecting external devices. In this case the external devices will be the sensors. With

the sensors in question having sensor connectors what is needed is an adapter, in order to connect the sensor to our tablet. Such a thing exists called “EASY LINK ADAPTER” that allows the sensor ports to be plugged in on end and the other end is a USB mini port which will connect directly to our tablet. Upon connecting the sensor to the device the user will see the software react to the sensors readings. This will issue real-time information to the user.

Response time of Vernier sensors- 90% of the reading is completed in 1second. So essentially the reading will be complete within two seconds. It is then entirely up to the farmer as to how long he should want to leave the sensor in the ground. He will see this reading appear on his tablet. And can decide whether to save the reading locally or upload it to his database.

PH Range of sensor- The sensor will take readings between 0-14. The readings will benefit the farmer as it covers all aspects of what his soil quality can be highly acidic or neutral or alkaline. This information is crucial to the farmer as the information determines what fertilizer is to be used in order to correct the soil characteristics. If the farmer requires a certain soil type in order to grow particular crops. Changes to the soil ph. will have to be made.

Temperature range: 5 to 80°CRange: pH 0–14Accuracy: +/- 0.2 pH unitsPower: 3 mA @ 5VDC

The Soil Moisture Sensor uses capacitance to measure the water content of soil (by measuring the dielectric permittivity of the soil, which is a function of the water content). Simply insert this rugged sensor into the soil to be tested, and the volumetric water content of the soil is reported in percentages.

Range: 0 to 45% volumetric water content in soil Accuracy: ±4% typicalOperating temperature: –40°C to +60°C

Upload the data: (METHODS) & Database selection

After the user is satisfied with their readings using either the soil ph. or soil moisture sensor in that particular area, they will be saved to the device automatically. They can be uploaded to the database via Wi-Fi. If the WIFI access is not available, then the may be device taken back and upload the data when he is within WIFI range. Tablets in today’s market have a good internal memory, some having up to 8GB. The required space for these readings will be quiet small so large memory on the tablet is not necessary. The other alternative being uploading the data manually, i.e. (connecting the tablet to the pc or laptop, and physically transferring the information gathered to the MYSQL database) the services required will be hosted on the cloud via amazon web services. AWS provide AMAZON RDS for MYSQL.

[5] The reason MySQL was chosen for this solution:

Scalability and Flexibility MySQL is a cross platform friendly piece of DBMS software. Flexibility is a stalwart feature of MySQL with all flavours of Linux, UNIX, and Windows being supported. MySQL being open source allows complete customization for those wanting to add unique or change requirements to the database server.

High AvailabilityMYSQL provides rock-solid reliability and constant availability, with customers relying on MySQL to guarantee around-the-clock uptime. MySQL offers a variety of high-availability options from high-speed master/slave replication configurations, to specialized Cluster servers offering instant failover, to third party vendors offering unique high-availability solutions for the MySQL database server.

Open Source Freedom and 24 x 7 SupportsMany big high-end corporations are indecisive to fully commit to open source software, this is because they have this idea that they won’t get the same type of support, professional services, or safety nets that they feel they currently get with proprietary software to ensure the overall success of their key applications. Worries that big companies have can be put to bed. MySQL has complete around-the-clock support as well as indemnification is available through MySQL Enterprise. MySQL is not a typical open source project as all the software is owned and supported by Oracle, and because of this, a unique cost and support model are available that provides a unique combination of open source freedom and trusted software with support. Seen below is a database engine ranking system. For an open source bit of

software it doesn’t seem to be doing too bad ranking in second place above SQL server.

Lowest Total Cost of OwnershipCompanies will realize such cost savings when changing to MYSQL. The use of the MySQL database server and scale-out architectures make the most of low-cost commodity hardware, corporations are finding that they can achieve amazing levels of scalability and performance, all at a cost that is far less than those offered by proprietary and scale-up software vendors. In addition, the reliability and easy maintainability of MySQL means that database administrators don't waste time troubleshooting performance or downtime issues, but instead can concentrate on making a positive impact on higher level tasks that involve the business side of data

MYSQL was chosen ahead of two other DBMS’s because of the points above, one of the main reasons as to why SQL Server was not chosen was the fact that it can only be run on Windows operating system. This reduces flexibility. Newer versions of SQL Server also require more advanced technologies to support resources used by the database. Licensing is expensive as prices vary depending on processors and amount of users.ORACLE is designed for the larger organizations, which have a big budget and their customers need more complex business needs. MYSQL is a low cost database that’s most commonly used for low end purposes opposed to oracles. MYSQL can hold massive amounts of data and search it quickly. This was a big positive for the solution, as our system will be dealing with a multitude of user’s information. MYSQL is comparable to MSSQL (SQL server) or Oracle in terms of use in large projects without getting down to the small differences. MySQL is used on most web hosts for the simple reason that it is free to download and then $500 dollars for a commercial license and support is offered ranging from $1500-$62000. This is a major benefit into us having it manage our customer’s data.

[6]Why AWS was chosen? AMAZON RDS MYSQL (AWS)

1. Flexibility

Using AWS this allows the customer to select a range of options such as the operating system, programming language, web application platform, database, and other services that you the customer might need.

2. Cost effective

With AWS the customer only pays for the compute power, storage, and other resources they use, they have no obligation to sign up to long-term contracts or up-front commitments. The ease of scaling up and down is a great pulling power by amazon web services.

3. Reliability

The reliability of AWS allows you take advantage of a scalable, reliable, and secure global computing infrastructure, the virtual backbone of Amazon.com’s multi-billion dollar online business that has been honed for over a decade.

[7] Amazon RDS for MySQL gives the customer access to the capabilities of a familiar MySQL database engine. What this means is that the code, applications, and the tools you already use today with your existing databases can be used with Amazon RDS. Amazon RDS will automatically patch the database software and backs up your database, storing the backups for a user-defined retention period and enabling point-in-time recovery. You benefit from the flexibility of being able to scale the compute resources or storage capacity associated with your Database Instance (DB Instance) via a single API call.

Amazon RDS Provisioned “IOPS” (computer performance measurement) is a storage option designed to deliver fast, predictable, and consistent Input/output performance, and is optimized for I/O-intensive, transactional (OLTP) database workloads.

Amazon RDS for MySQL makes it easy to use replication to enhance availability and reliability for production workloads. Using the Multi-AZ deployment option you can run mission critical workloads with high availability and built-in automated fail-over from your primary database to a synchronously replicated secondary database in case of a failure. Amazon RDS for MySQL also enables you to scale out beyond the capacity of a single database deployment for read-heavy database workloads. As with all Amazon Web Services, there are no up-front investments required, and you pay only for the resources you use.

[7] You launch an Amazon RDS for MySQL instance like any other AWS instance, and within minutes you can access it. It does require you to have an active AWS account. Amazon offers a lot of options like automated backups so that covers the backup issue encountered with us. Multi-AZ deployment (standby replicated version of your database for fail-over) and Provisioned IOPS (I/O optimization) right from the setup, which is very convenient.

Amazon uses a database security group for your database instance, for which you need to authorize your server’s IP. Once it’s done, use your DB instance endpoint as the database server along with the login credentials you specified in your setup and you’re done. You can also grant access to a specific EC2 security zone. Monitoring is running right away, and gives you an insight into usage metrics like CPU, memory, latency etc. You can also set up alarms, to notify you whenever one of these metrics is crossing a specified threshold

[8] PRICING FOR AWS.

AWS Free Usage Tier with Amazon RDS

750 hours of Amazon RDS Single-AZ Micro DB Instance usage – enough hours to run a DB Instance continuously each month

20 GB of database storage

10 million I/O’s

20 GB of backup storage for your automated database backups and any user-initiated DB Snapshots

In addition to these services, the AWS Management Console is available at no additional charge to help you build and manage your DB Instances on Amazon RDS.

The following solution has been chosen as with amazon fort the first year we get a free usage tier.

After the free usage tier is finished, we can then go about choosing the correct requirements that would suit our needs. The following m3.large system looks the most promising.

RUNNING ON LINUX:

The system above would possibly suit our needs after the free usage tier so this system would be in place in year 2. The cost of this would be:

€0.140 X 24hrs = €3.36 cost of one day.€3.36 X 365 days= € 1226.40 cost per annum.

This costing can be easily changed as we are not sure how many customers are going to have this product by the end of the first year. We will be able to easily scale up and scale down with the equipment hosted by amazon web services.

Viewing the data:From the user’s point of view, viewing the data will be done via a website that can be accessed via any device that can connect to the internet and display a webpage. On the website there will be a login screen with a username (email address) and password. The user will require an email address and login password in order to view his/her account.

WEBSITEThe website will consist of 6 pages, and will be written in PHP in order for this software to communicate with the MYSQL database in the background. With research online a quote was received from “myitsupport.com” and an estimate was quoted to be in the range €2000. The six pages considered for the website are:LOGIN page: this page will be the first of the website; the initial login will be an email address and password.Main menu Page: The main menu page will be the second page of the website, offering the user a selection of options such as History, Graphs, Recommendations, and Contact.History Page: This page will be in plain text format, consisting of previous results that the farmer has taken.Graphs Page: The graphs page will be a collection of graphs, bar charts, pie charts, and diagrams. This format will be benefit the user as these are easier read than a long list of information and results.

Recommendations page: This page will be a set of rules and guidelines for the user to follow based on the results they have gathered, and in order to get their soil in a particular state for certain crop growing.

User InterfaceOnce the farmer has logged into the website, he/she can then access more menu’s and browse their account. On the website will be options available such as ‘History’ which will contain pervious readings of the soil. ‘Contact page’ the contact page will be a contact page to us the suppliers of the product, if the user encounters any problems. ‘Recommendations’ Recommendations will be set of guidelines to follow determining what actions should be taken, in order to have your soil in the correct condition. ‘Graphs’. Graphs are a great way to explain facts and figures to people that are not used to them. The graphs will possibly be a pie chart that will indicate what the soil ph. was and what the moisture was in each reading. The website will be written in PHP by a web designer, in order for the database to communicate with the tablet’s recording.

Training

Training will be of a minimum for this product. A user manual will be issued to the farmer as he buys the product. The manual will have both instructions and a troubleshooting section. There will be a contact page on both the website and app, in order for the customer to get in contact with us, the supplier of the product for any issues they might have.

AdvertisingThe marketing of this product will be advertising space on the radio, newspapers to start with and if it takes off we will then head towards having a TV advert. According to the number of farms in Ireland we intend to supply 500 units to customers. In order to achieve this goal. We only need to gain the business of 0.004 % of 139,860 farms.

MaintenanceMaintenance for this solution will be at a cost of €50 per month from “global vision.ie”. If maintenance is needed perhaps 1 hour per week this leads to €200 per month.

€200 X 12 months €2400 for the year.

[12] If you require updates or website maintenance but you don’t require a monthly contract then this is the option for you. We offer our clients a pay as you go service for minor updates and changes. Our rate is 50 euro per hour and we provide you with an estimate of time and expenses before any web design or any software upgrades begin.

Summary

This product and overall system will assist farmers in their crop growing tasks, i.e. getting the soil ready for planting with proper measures. Maintain the land with correct nutrients in order to maximize the lands potential of sustaining strong crop growth. This report will discuss in great detail how our system will make accurate recommendations for farmers in order to reap the best produce from their land. The project will be greatly beneficial, providing farmers with an innovative solution which will assist in them having an environmentally friendly farm. The knowledge about fertilizer on farming areas will be of great value, as cost savings will be made possible by knowing how much fertilizer is exactly needed per acre/field. There is a gap in the market for this product and service it provides, as there are many soil analysers out in the market, but none do exactly as the solution that has been researched.

Requirements for Solution 1Functional requirements (FARMER)

Record the following characteristics about the soil (Soil PH and Soil Moisture) Upload gathered information to the backend system (MYSQL database) via

WIFI/Manually Provide a User friendly interface (BIG buttons, CHUNKY text, Simple one click

functionality on Buttons) Mobility: the ability to access the information on the go. Develop an app for the

farmer’s phone Provide a fertilizer recommendation table to the farmers so they can look up what

actions should be taken in order to prepare his land for the given crop. Training/User Manual

Operational requirements (SUPPLIER)

Servers and DBMS needed to manage system (cloud based or local) Backup system needed in case of system malfunctions. Web based interface/app needed with user profiles (logon to view results) Cross platform equipment (run on different OS)

Technical requirements (TECHNICAL ASPECTS)

Integration of site overview “snapshot” of the farmers land into software. WIFI enabled tablet. Website/ mobile Application being able to communicate with the database.

While conducting the research for the technical solution “handheld device” this is an over view of the system:

SensorsEasy Link AdapterTablet.

Take readings with two soil sensors (Soil ph. & soil moisture)

Readings uploaded to the Database via WIFI. (Stored locally) Data viewed via Website. Information stored on AWS. The supplier speaks with AWS to scale up and down. The suppliers target customers.

Technical Solution 2

The SystemAn overview of the proposed system:

The system is comprised of a number of *nodes (the number depends on the farmer – the larger the area, more nodes give greater accuracy) and a *base station that acts as the central point on the network.

The nodes are deployed in the areas of the field wherever the farmer requires. These nodes then record soil data (PH, moisture) and route this data wirelessly to the

base station. This base station is equipped with a GPS chip, storage facility and a Bluetooth

module. The farmer uses an app on his phone/tablet to connect with the base station via

Bluetooth. The soil data, time and date information is uploaded to the app on the phone/tablet

along with the Geolocation information from the base station This information is then uploaded to a database The user (farmer) logs onto a website with his own credentials - this brings him to his

dashboard The dashboard contains options to view uploaded data in different scenarios such as

graphs and charts. These charts allow the user to view predictions based on the data. A link to the *map screen is also here, with the ability to plot the points on the map where his nodes have been deployed as well as links to view and edit account and personal information.

There is a recommendations facility that generates optimum fertilizer type and amount for specific areas of the farm depending on the type of crop being grown. These recommendations are based on average readings taken in specific areas. This gives the farmer a more accurate idea on the overall state of the soil in that particular field/area.

*Nodes – these are equipped with sensors that measure soil PH levels and soil moisture content. The nodes are placed into the ground in order for the sensors to record accurate readings. The nodes have the ability to route information wirelessly to the base station and can be calibrated to take readings and route them at regular intervals. More information in the hardware section.

*Base station – This acts as the central point on the wireless network. All data from the nodes gets routed to the base station where it is stored. The base station and the nodes use mesh network topography in order to reduce redundancy and a low power networking algorithm is needed in order to conserve power. The stored data is then uploaded to the users phone/tablet app via Bluetooth.

*Map screen – the user has the ability to plot zones on his land where readings have been taken. This gives the system an accurate representation of when and where readings were

taken. Another feature on this screen is for the farmer to rename the zones to his liking e.g. Zone 1 may be re-named to “Hassett’s field”. This gives the farmer the option to familiarize himself with the system and make it more personable rather than deal with zone numbers.

The website multiplottr.com allows the user to plot, save and share multiple addresses on a customised map. A similar technology is needed for this system.

Points plotted on Google maps can be done by storing latitude and longitude co-ordinates in KML format. KML (Keyhole Markup Language) is an XML notation for internet-based maps such as Google Maps. This KML file can be used to plot multiple points on a map.

System ConsiderationsThere are some limitations on the system such as the distance from the nodes to each other and to the base station is limited. The routing is done via Wi-Fi so the range is generally 50 metres or less. Also for the recommendations facility to perform accurately, the farmer needs to enter the correct data on initial setup of his/her account. This system also requires the farmer to have an Android or iOS device with Bluetooth in order to transfer the data from the base station.

Required Hardware and Software

Sensors For the system, the measuring devices needed to take readings from the soil need to be integrated into a system where the readings are taken by the sensor instruments and the software (middleware) then takes these readings and transmits them to the base station in order for them to be uploaded to the database.

For the PH sensor, there are a number of candidates. The UlsterLeaf RapiTest Digital PH meter is one candidate. This device is priced at €10.50. However there is also the integration factor to consider here. Middleware would need to be designed to integrate this piece of hardware into the proposed system.

Another option is to custom build the PH and soil moisture sensors on an arduino board. This would mean manufacturing the product from scratch and employing an electronic engineer to design and build the sensor system where the data could be uploaded to the base station. This was deemed to be the best option for this system as Arduino is highly configurable and likely to prove more cost efficient in the long term as the system becomes more refined. Below is the cost of buying in the main components needed to build the nodes.

Arduino board

ATMEGA328 - €22.48

Soil moisture sensor

Phishine Soil Moisture Sensor - €3.63

Ph sensor

Atlas Scientific pH circuit - €20.37

Mobile Phone App

In this solution, an app needs to be created that has the ability to interact with a base station via Bluetooth. The option to sync with a base station and upload the data collected is an essential part of the system.

Below is a sample screen with Bluetooth pair and upload to database options

The app also allows the user to view his/her historical data and personal information. This section of the app is essentially showing web content, so any changes made by the farmer on the website are automatically synchronised to the app. The estimated cost of developing the app is €5,000 approx (once off payment). The update and maintenance section is handled in a later section of the proposal.

The website

The initial setup of the system requires the user to login using his/her given credentials. The user is then presented with questions they need to answer in order to make the system as accurate as possible. These questions are;

What crops do you currently grow? The user can select multiple items from a list. This list contains all possible crops that are grown.

How much fertilizer do you currently use per year (kg) approx.? The user can enter an amount into a box or click the do not know button. This means that the user may not be able to generate some graphs and other predictions in the short term.

What type of fertilizer do you currently use? The user can select multiple items from a list. This contains a list of the most popular fertilizer combinations and types.

In order to make the recommendations system as accurate as possible, it is highly beneficial to the farmer to enter his most accurate answers.

When the user logs into their account they are presented with a menu with the following options:

My Account - allows the user to view/edit account information

My Personal Details - allows the user to view/edit personal details

My Crops - allows the user to view list of current crops being grown, also allowing the user to add or delete crops. This will influence the recommendations facility

My Fertilizer - allows the user to view or edit the types of fertilizer they currently use. This also influences the recommendations facility

Map - this facility allows the user to view their farm in google maps style view while also giving them the opportunity to plot zones on their land e.g. zones that have already been fertilized. This gives a good overview of areas that have yet to be taken care of and gives the user a lot of information about the areas already fertilized such as:

date/time last fertilized average PH level before fertilization average PH level after fertilization type of crop grown in each area

View Graphs/Charts/Recommendations - this allows the user to generate graphs and charts based on the data in the system. These charts could be used for projections etc.. This is also where the recommendations on types and amounts of fertilizer to use based on existing soil data and the type of crop being grown.

Contact Us - this gives the user a facility in which to contact us about any issues they may have with the system.

The cost of developing the website is estimated to be between €18,000 and €20,000 as the website will need to be both an E-Commerce website for the sales section and also have a login facility for members where they can view and edit personal data. The recommendations section and the map section are likely to require complex code so this is factored into the price.

A survey could also be sent out to farmers who are currently using the system which asks questions like:

how happy are you with the system in general (1-10)

The DatabaseThe requirements for the database for this system are as follows:

Scalable - The database needs to be able to function when high amounts of users and concurrent connections

Reliability - The database needs to be reliable, have good redundancy mechanisms, backups etc..

Ease of Use - The database needs to be easy to install and maintain. This means lower training costs for staff or lower costs for hiring DBA's

Capable of handling spatial data - The GPS data from the base station needs to be stored and the optimum form of storing this type of data is in spatial databases.

The database will need to store information such as:

Reading’s info

- Soil temperature reading- Soil PH reading- Date and time of reading- Geolocation of base station at the time the reading was taken

Fertilizer data

- Types of fertilizer- Quantities of fertilizer- Commonly sold mixtures

The database will also need an equation which takes in soil data and gives a recommendation on which fertilizer type best suits the land for the type of crop being grown, also recommending the amount of fertilizer needed (or if any is needed) in a particular zone/field.

To achieve this, the system will need to be able to calculate the average PH level and soil moisture content of a particular field. This will be easily done as all is needed to calculate this is the number of readings taken and PH level taken from each node.

When storing Geolocation data, a consideration to take into account is the type of database used. Some databases handle spatial data better than others. Traditional DBMS are not built

to handle this type of data so databases that specialize in handling this type of data were developed. Also, extensions and tools were developed for traditional DBMS such as MySQL to enable the handling of spatial data.

Types of Databases under consideration

MariaDB is a robust, scalable and reliable relational SQL server which is developed and maintained by the makers of the original MySQL database. MariaDB is compatible with MySQL so a system that uses a MySQL database can be swapped out easily to use MariaDB as its backend. MariaDB supports spatial extensions that enable the creation, storage and analysis of geographic features. This could be useful as there will be queries executed against the Geolocation data. MariaDB is completely free open source software which makes it attractive to smaller start-up companies as cost can be a major factor in deciding the type of database to use.

MySQL is a similar relational database management system which is used by large web applications such as Wordpress, Google, Drupal, Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia for data storage. The advantages of MySQL are; it is free, open source. It works well from the point of view of data storage and retrieval. There is also now support for spatial functions in the most recent release of MySQL.

Oracle 11g is a DBMS which is used by many Large organizations worldwide. Oracle is a huge, flexible and secure database engine. It is highly configurable and often used by global enterprises to process and manage data. Oracle differs from MySQL and MariaDB in that it is not free or open source for use in enterprises. The advantage of using Oracle is that it is not operating system dependent. It runs equally well on Windows, Mac or Linux environments. The disadvantage of using oracle instead of MySQL or MariaDB comes down to cost. Oracle spatial is a separately licensed component of the Oracle database. For the purposes of this system, paying for an Oracle licence would not make sound financial sense as licences for both the database and the spatial option would need to be paid.

Microsoft SQL Server is a DBMS which runs only on windows operating system environments. This would restrict the choices of operating systems to run the system on if this DBMS were to be chosen. IIS would have to be used as the web server as SQL server only works on Windows environments. SQL Server, like Oracle 11g is not open source or free to use for enterprises. This is a disadvantage of using this system rather than MySQL or MariaDB. Spatial data is supported in SQL server versions from 2008 upwards.

HostingThere are three main options when it comes to hosting web/application servers and databases.

1. Use a traditional hosting company such as Blacknight.com or GoDaddy.com to host the website and database. This means signing up to a specific package where there is a finite amount of bandwidth available and a limit to data storage and traffic. This means that either bandwidth is being overused or underused, while also sharing hardware with other applications.

2. Buy hardware and run the web/application servers and database locally. This means a large upfront cost to buy the hardware. Also, there is the problem of knowing how much hardware to buy and the maintenance and storage of the hardware.

3. Use cloud services to run both the web servers and database. This incorporates backups as they can be scheduled from within the cloud control pane

Predicting how customers are going to adopt a new application/solution is difficult, and it’s hard to get right. So, when a capacity decision is made prior to deploying an application, often the outcome can go one of two directions; either end up sitting on expensive idle resources or dealing with limited capacity. If the system runs out of capacity then the problem of a poor customer experience is realised until more resources can be acquired. With Cloud Computing, these problems go away. The amounts of resources needed are provisioned for. If more is needed, it can easily scale up. If resources are not needed, they can be just turned off which means payment is not required for them. This is potentially a huge cost saving model which can be beneficial to start-ups, as a large investment in the hardware and software needed up-front may cripple the business financially and hinder the long term sustainability of the company.

After careful consideration, it was decided that the cloud services model is the correct option for the purposes of this solution. The cost benefits compared to both other options can be seen below. There is also the added bonus of having a free one-year period. This will allow the business to expand and grow its customer base. This means an increase in income to the business and any costs incurred for hosting web servers and databases will be easily afforded. Below is a comprehensive guide to the options available in the chosen hosting solution.

AWS (Amazon Web Services), S3 and CloudFrontA graphical representation of the system architecture (not including CloudFront and CloudWatch and ElastiCache which operate on the same level as the Application servers)

The advantages of using AWS over buying, configuring and maintaining servers locally:

Low latency - if everything possible is deployed to *CloudFront, AWS can detect your location and make sure content is delivered to the user as fast and efficiently as possible. Taking content off servers and moving it into a bucket (essentially a root level directory) in *S3 alleviates the work that the web servers would normally have to do in terms of delivering the content. Effectively CloudFront delivers the content on a repeated basis without the web servers having to take care of the traffic. This means less *EC2 servers are needed. Ordinarily, the web servers would be working hard to deliver content, now this is being offloaded; this immediately translates into cost savings by reducing both the number of servers needed and the size of the servers. All this gives the customer a better/faster experience while delivering the same service. This is also beneficial when updating content. Because all of the content is essentially in one location, you only have to update it in one place rather than fishing through multiple EC2 servers to find the content and update from there. This means the durability of static content goes up, reliability goes up, and costs go down, all by implementing CloudFront. For dynamic content, CloudFront can also handle specific queries that are made back to the web server and cache them at the Edge Location. A popular query goes to the web server then to the database then returns content to the user. Using caching, popular queries can be fed to a high number of customers without having to use web server resources.

Managing Traffic

Load balancing from the start ensures customers never get the 503 message (web site server unavailable, usually due to maintenance or the server is too busy) as *ELB takes care of this. There is no interruption in terms of the delivery of the service. This may happen if servers are stored locally and there is a sharp upturn in customers, and in turn, traffic and queries on the system. The customer experience needs to be exactly the same regardless of the numbers. Whether there are 50 customers or 50,000 customers, scaling up (or down) is easy using EC2 behind ELB. A convenient tool for achieving this is *CloudWatch. By using CloudWatch it is possible to measure CPU utilization, network traffic in and out. It can detect how hard each CPU is working therefore making sure resources are available in order to ensure no interruptions in the service.

Databases

Using EC2, the configuration of the system starts with web servers which are auto scaling which in turn serve the database. The database uses a master and standby configuration, where the standby database becomes the master in case of master database failure. Another aspect of the configuration is the use of read replica databases. These read replicas can be used for tasks such as reporting, which may need to be carried out one a day/week depending on the company. This reduces the size required for the RDS fleet. This means smaller machines are needed for the master, standby and read replica because the master is not being loaded up with peak of having to do the workload or reporting at the same time. Also the use of *elasti-cache can mean that a high percentage of calls can be handled here instead of using the master database. What this means is that the size of the master *RDS can be scaled down because elasti-cache can handle some of the calls. CloudWatch can be used to detect the CPU work that the RDS instance is doing. This data can be taken advantage of by scaling down to the level required. For instance if the RDS CPU usage has a peak of 25% then clearly it can be resized.

For the proposed solution, content stored in databases is a critical component of the system. As a start-up company with only a handful of clients it may be feasible to construct a local backend, where web servers and database servers are configured and maintained or pay for a monthly hosting package where a hosting company is offering a set webspace size and bandwidth but a lot of it is not being used. However, when client numbers start to rise, the scalability problem becomes evident. This is where AWS has a huge advantage. Scalability is not a problem as the system can be configured to work seamlessly whether there are 3 customers or 50,000 customers.

Explanation of Terms

[14] CloudFront - Amazon's content delivery web service. Integrates with other Amazon Web Services to give developers and businesses an easy way to distribute content to end users with low latency, high data transfer speeds, and no commitments.

[15] S3 - Storage for the internet. IT is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers. S3 provides a simple web-services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, secure, fast, inexpensive infrastructure that amazon uses to run its own global network of websites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers

[16]EC2 - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers. Amazon EC2’s simple web service interface allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction. It provides you with complete control of your computing resources and lets you run on Amazon’s proven computing environment. Amazon EC2 reduces the time required to obtain and boot new server instances to minutes, allowing you to quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as your computing requirements change. Amazon EC2 changes the economics of computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you actually use. Amazon EC2 provides developers the tools to build failure resilient applications and isolate themselves from common failure scenarios. 

EC2 provides resizable computing capacity in the cloud. Using EC2 eliminates the need to invest in computing hardware upfront which saves money while also allowing applications to be developed and deployed faster. EC2 can be used to launch one or more virtual servers as a data center. Each of these servers are referred to as instances. These instances can automatically scale up to add capacity to handle extra traffic if needed. AWS also provides pre-configured templates for instances known as AMI’s (Amazon Machine Images). These AMI’s can include just an operating system such as windows server 2008 or Linux red hat, or they can also include pre-installed software packages on these systems.

Based on the amount of computing power needed for tasks, EC2 instances range from low performance “micro” instances to high performance “x-large” instances for tasks such as data warehousing. Instance types can be mixed and matched based on the computing power or memory needed.

Security in EC2

There are settings to specify ports, protocols, IP ranges that can reach a particular instance using security groups (which are similar to traditional firewalls)

[17] ELB - Elastic Load Balancing automatically distributes incoming application traffic across multiple Amazon EC2 instances. It enables you to achieve greater levels of fault tolerance in your applications, seamlessly providing the required amount of load balancing capacity needed to distribute application traffic.

[18] CloudWatch - Amazon CloudWatch provides monitoring for AWS cloud resources and the applications customers run on AWS. Developers and system administrators can use it to collect and track metrics, gain insight, and react immediately to keep their applications and businesses running smoothly. Amazon CloudWatch monitors AWS resources such as Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS DB instances, and can also monitor custom metrics generated by a customer’s applications and services. With Amazon CloudWatch, you gain system-wide visibility into resource utilization, application performance, and operational health.

Amazon CloudWatch provides a reliable, scalable, and flexible monitoring solution that you can start using within minutes. You no longer need to set up, manage, or scale your own monitoring systems and infrastructure. Using Amazon CloudWatch, you can easily monitor as much or as little metric data as you need. Amazon CloudWatch lets you programmatically retrieve your monitoring data, view graphs, and set alarms to help you troubleshoot, spot trends, and take automated action based on the state of your cloud environment.

[19] ElastiCache is a web service that makes it easy to deploy, operate, and scale an in-memory cache in the cloud. The service improves the performance of web applications by allowing you to retrieve information from fast, managed, in-memory caches, instead of relying entirely on slower disk-based databases.

[20] RDS - Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is a web service that makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. It provides cost-efficient and resizable capacity while managing time-consuming database administration tasks, freeing you up to focus on your applications and business.

RDS is a powerful tool which can support the full application life cycle. It provides rapid provisioning, automated backups and point-in-time snapshot recovery. High availability features with multi-zone deployment, and use replication to scale out read-heavy workloads while modifying database capacity easily

AnalysisHow the technical solution scores against requirements – scoring 0-4

0 – offers no support 1 – offers minimal support 2 – offers average support 3 – offers good support 4 – offers full support

General Requirements of the Technical solution 1:Task 1 Read soil 3/4

The soil sensor will have the ability to read the soil quickly, as mentioned above 90% of the total reading is done in one second. Doesn’t need a long period of time to gain results and show them on screen, the farmer has instant access to real-time data on this on screen. The sensors are mobile, with the ease of plugging them into the adapter (if necessary) and then to the tablet. The farmer can be on his way without the hassle of packing up an amount of gear. It’s plain and simple. The Vernier pH Sensor is question is custom calibrated and is a quick-responding sensor. It can be used in chemistry, biology, and environmental science. All of the above are positives about the requirement, hence why this has scored 3/4 with only one negative factor below. The negative factor about reading the soil would be the expensive of actually gaining the readings as the sensor is priced at 100 US Dollars or €72.66.

Task 2 Upload data to backend 1/4

Uploading the data to the backend system will be either done via Wi-Fi or manually. What is meant by manually would mean the farmer coming home from soil testing and manually plugging the tablet into the PC or laptop and physically transferring the files recorded to the pc and adding the information to the MYSQL database. The tablet chosen most likely will not have cellular data so that method is more than likely ruled out, so these are the only other two means in which the data can be obtained by the database. The score given to this requirement is 1/4 as it is quiet hard for this requirement to be done well. Unless the farmer has WIFI across all the land it may just be stored locally. WI-FI’s transmission range is an issue as the general rule of thumb is that WIFI will not travel any more than 92m outdoors. Signal Strength is also an issue as networks can be sometimes inconsistent in areas such as a farmers land. Weak/ loss of signal factors can come into play and can be caused by natural effects such as weather conditions, also building’s and barriers play a big part in the signal degrading. The fact that the information can be uploaded via WIFI and save the farmer the hassle of being a computer literate person is why it has been scored 1/4. This feature will ease the task of getting the information uploaded. Perhaps the farmer is not very well up-to-date with technology and computers so the task of manually uploading it would be difficult for him.

Task 3 User Friendly Interface 3/4

The user interface on the tablet will be user friendly. The main advantage is that it will be written in a way that everyone can easily pick up the device and start reading soil characteristics. By using big buttons with one click functionality, plain text and simple instructions explaining what each of the button does, thus satisfying the needs of the user. This requirement has scored this 3/4 because the only drawback to this requirement would be convincing people to use the product as technology shy people would not even like the idea of using it. Non-technical people tend to shy away from these products, and perhaps if they did pick up the device it needs to be good in order to stop them putting it down and rarely using it again.

Task 4 Mobility (ability to view data from smartphone/tablet) 2/4

The technical solution proposed is mobile. The notion that the farmer can just pick up the tablet his/her sensors and be on his way to carry out his work is very appealing. The farmer will be able to move from field to field taking readings as necessary. The farmer will initially have a Google maps snapshot or site overview of his/her land, they can zoom in and out and touch the appropriate field and within the field, have a selection of sites (red markers) within the field to take measurements from. The following snapshot has been accessed from Google maps. The User will explain to the supplier how much land he owns; the supplier will research these sites via Google maps or the county council sites online and be sure that the developer of the software integrates these sites into the software. When he selects his site on the overview, he then takes his measurement which then is corresponding to the site. Below is what the farmer sees when he runs the software, just before he selects where the readings will be taken from. Viewing the data on the go, will be easily done via the mobile web application that the web designer would have incorporated into the coding of the website. In order for the farmer to get a recommendation about a particular site he must have access to both the tablet “map” and also the recommendations table online, in order to determine what fertilizer should be placed at which location.

Reccomendations 2/4

Field 1

Field 3

Field 2

Field 5

Field 4

Soil PH 4.0

Soil Moisture 17%

Soil PH 3.9

Soil Moisture 35%

Soil PH 3.2

Soil Moisture 55%

Recommendations page: This page will be a set of rules and guidelines for the user to follow based on the results they have gathered, and in order to get their soil in a particular state for certain crop growing. The following page will contain data about how to treat soil in order for soil to be in a particular condition you need. The page will have actions to take based on your soil. Whether this is to add more nitrogen, potassium, or calcium to the land in order to heighten or lower the soil’s ph in order to gain a higher yield of crop from the correct soil type.

General Requirements of the Technical solution 2:

Requirements Technical solutionRecord soil data This is a basic requirement of the system. The nodes

record the soil data (ph. level and soil moisture) and transmit to a base station nearby. The sizes of these packets are small (kb) as only 2 readings are being transmitted. The disadvantage of using nodes that transmit data wirelessly to a base station is the issue of connectivity. There is always a chance that the nodes or base station will malfunction, be it interference or Wi-Fi problems.Score 3/4

Upload this data to backend system

This base station is equipped with a receiver which captures the data transmitted from the nodes. This data is then paired with phone app via bluetooth and the data is transferred to the phone. From here, the app uploads the data to the database. The advantage of this technology is that bluetooth has been around for a number of years and is very well understood. this means there are a high number of developers and tools available in order to integrate it into the system without much problem. The

disadvantage of using bluetooth is that it is a PAN technology and only works well in short distances (less than 10m). This means that the phone will need to be close to the base station when transferring the data.Score 3/4

User friendly interface The app has a simple interface with only a limited number of options available to the user. It has been designed to be intuitive with the advantage that the user cannot go too 'deep' into the app and lose their way. However, some farmers may still have trouble adjusting to using a Smartphone app as some may not be technologically proficient.Score 3/4

Mobile (ability to view data from Smartphone/tablet)

The ability to view historical data is available. This may not make for the best viewing experience on smaller Smartphone screens as viewing some of the information involves viewing maps. With the different sizes of screens on smartphones and tablets, this feature may not be as streamlined as would have been desired.Score 2/4

Recommendations on how much fertilizer needed based on uploaded data

Initially the farmer will need to fill in a form which gives the system the required information it needs (such as monthly and yearly spend, type of fertilizer used, how much fertilizer used) in order to make recommendations. These recommendations will be based on a table which matches the uploaded data with the data already in the database. The more data the system acquires, the more accurate the recommendations will become. This is a quality of most new systems as it is the data that makes the system more reliable in terms of recommendations. The downside to this feature of the system is that the farmer may not know the information needed to optimize the system. There is also the danger that they enter a figure that is wildly inaccurate. This would mean the baselines for the system would not be correct and recommendations may not be as accurate as needed.Score 2/4

Technical RequirementsServers and database needed to manage system (cloud based or local)

The question here is whether to implement a system where we buy our own servers and DBMS in order to run the system or to implement a cloud based system where everything gets uploaded to a cloud-based service. As the cloud based service was deemed to be the most appropriate for this system, it has the advantage of being free for one year which enables the company to re-allocate funds elsewhere. However, using a cloud based system means that trust is being put into external services. If this service were to fail, the whole system goes down.

Score 3/4

Backup system needed in case of system malfunctions

Because a cloud based solution has been chosen for hosting the website and database, scheduling and managing backups can easily be done through the control panel. This is extremely user friendly and does not require a lot of time or expertise in order to function properly

Score 4/4

Web based interface/app needed with user profiles (logon to view results)

The system needs a website and app to function properly. The website needs to be able to display and retrieve dynamic information from a database so PHP and MySQL is a good option. These technologies are proven to work well together and they can achieve all of our needs on the website end of the system. For the mobile app, the Bluetooth facility on the user's phone needs to be integrated so designing a hybrid app for the two main mobile operating systems would seem to be the best solution at this time. This hybrid app can take advantage of the Bluetooth function on the user's mobile device while also displaying web content such as the user's profile information and map data. re and retrieve data from a database so a technology

Score 3/4

Cross platform (run on different OS)

From the end-users point of view, the system needs to be platform independent as limiting the system to users of a particular platform will reduce the potential customer base while also limiting the system to the technologies available on that particular OS. As the app will only be available on both iOS devices and Android devices initially, this rules out users with phones on other platforms, or forces the users to buy a phone with either operating system. This is a negative aspect to the system as it is not ideal to alienate any potential customers if possible. For the hosting part of the system, the cloud based model supports a variety of operating systems so in this respect, it ticks all the boxes.

Score 2/4

Analysis/EvaluationRequirement Solution 1 Solution 2Record Soil Data 3 3Upload to backend system 1 3User-friendly Interface 3 3

Mobility 2 2Generate Recommendations 2 2

Ethical Section

The ethical side of using our product would be the cut back on using more fertilizer than is needed or required, and saving the farmer both money and over polluting his land with incorrect nutrients or fertilizer. Everyone must realize that fertilizer is a danger to society if not used correctly using these finite ingredients has a massive effect on the environment due to overuse and wastage of materials. If this solution is implemented it could cut back on the amount of fertilizer needed.

There is a great opportunity to tackle the over usage of fertilizer throughout the country.If the country can just stop and identify the negative effects of over using fertilizer and try and cut down the amount, it would be greatly helping in the saving of money and helping the environment.

What can be done to succeed?

• Measure how much fertilizer a small farmer uses on his land.

In Ireland resources can be used to find out a rough estimate of how much fertilizer a regular farmer uses on his land. Determine how much fertilizer he is actually over using, instead of

just throwing it out on the field, the farmer can use the required amount of the proper bag, which will cut down on not only contamination but on the farmers costs.

• How much is used in Ireland?

Find out how much the whole country is using. And indeed spread the word about the product and the savings in cost and saving of the environment.

• Can savings expand into Europe?

The results of the country could be vital for expanding into Europe and letting them know about the benefits of knowing these facts and preventing overuse of fertilizer in other countries in Europe.

Conclusion Two alternative solutions to reduce and optimize fertilizing practices on farms in Ireland have been presented: Solution 2 is deemed to be the more suitable option to proceed with as it offers the user a more comprehensive analysis and recommendations facility which allows them to make accurate decisions in terms of their fertilizer choice and output while also having a lower cost to implement.

The use of technology in the agricultural industry in Ireland is not being widely used at the present time. There are technologies available in today’s market such as precision farming solutions. These solutions use modern day technology to aid farmers in making their processes more effective and efficient. However, these are not being widely used by farmers in Ireland at the present time. The reason for this underutilisation of technology on farms is due to a number of factors

Cost – The cost of implementing a technology driven system can often deter a farmer from purchasing.

Limited options available – there is not a wide range of solutions in the agricultural sector which are widely used and understood, so farmers are reluctant to buy into technologies they do not fully understand and the potential benefits of the technology if used in the correct manner.

It is believed that the proposed solutions can enable farmers to cut costs by using the correct amounts of fertilizer and the correct types of fertilizer on their land. When used correctly, the

proposed solutions saves the farmer money he/she would have normally spent on over fertilizing the land while also determining the correct type of fertilizer the farmer needs in order to maximize their yield. These solutions also have a positive ethical impact on the environment. With the optimization of the use of fertilizer, this means that toxins do not accidentally seep into surrounding streams and rivers. This ensures that the eco-system in the surrounding areas is not adversely affected by over-fertilization.

When adopting these technological solutions, farmers can get dragged into the situation where they change their processes to suit the technology. This is not an ideal situation as technology should be there to support and enhance existing processes. This is a potential negative aspect to the solution.

References:[1] http://www.agriinfo.in/?page=topic&superid=4&topicid=274

[2]http://books.google.ie/books?id=1GlxaTmiPz8C&pg=PT494&dq

[3] http://www.onsetcomp.com/hobonode-wireless-sensors

[4] http://www.microstrain.com/wireless/sensors

[5] https://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/topreasons.html

[6]http://aws.amazon.com/application-hosting/benefits/

[7]http://aws.amazon.com/rds/mysql/

[8] http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/

[8] http://aws.amazon.com/rds/free/[9] http://www.teagasc.ie/environment/nitrates/soil_testing.asp[10] http://www.independent.ie/business/farming/irelands-farmers-getting-older-cso-28891852.html [11]http://www.cso.ie/en/newsandevents/pressreleases/2012pressreleases/pressreleasecensusofagriculture2010finalresults/[12] http://www.globalvision.ie/clients/maintenance-contracts/

[13] http://www.irishexaminer.com/farming/stephencadogan/fertiliser-use-warrants-probe-238483.html

[14] http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/

[15] http://aws.amazon.com/s3/

[16] http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/

[17] http://aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/

[18] http://aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/

[19] http://aws.amazon.com/elasticache/

[20] http://aws.amazon.com/rds/