H2E2: A hybrid, hexagonal & energy efficient WSN green platform for precision agriculture

To enhance productivity of farms there is need to follow mantra by Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) i.e. “Save & Grow”. Save and Grow directs towards Precision Agriculture (PA) for sustainable crop production intensification. There is challenge to establish information communication technology (ICT) technologies in fields and remote areas. Proposed system is novel platform to establish wireless sensor network (WSN) to execute PA overcoming the challenge to set up wireless sensor and energy efficient network at farms. Hybrid network of free space optics (FSO) and radio frequency (RF) connectivity and use of solar at farms and base station / control station makes it energy efficient. License free, high bandwidth FSO technology enables multimedia data exchange thus opening gate for many applications. Hybrid Hexagonal Positioning (HHP) for sensor nodes has achieved better link utilization compared to other topologies saving energy and increasing lifetime of sensor node and network. Overall energy efficient, centralized, environment friendly system allows cost effective solution to farmers. A village centric model is presented to define applicability of proposed solution.