Teksmobile Announces LPWAN-powered Smart Poles For Agriculture

Teksmobile, the multinational software development company, is all set to initiate a new chapter of innovation in precision farming. In a recent event, the company announced that it has already started working on multi-featured smart poles - with built-in LPWAN capabilities and sensor technology. The product has been named AgriPole, and Team Teks is eyeing a 2019 Q2 launch for it.

In a brief tête-à-tête, company CEO Hussain Fakhruddin referred to this AgriPole project as an extension of the IoT-based activities his team has been involved in over the last couple of years. Earlier this year, Teksmobile had launched a prototype of its first-of-its-kind AgriTeks tool, and the smart poles will highlight the focus of the company on making the primary sector smarter and more productive. AgriPole is a product that will prove to be handy for both on-field farmers as well as agricultural researchers and logistics/warehousing experts, pointed out Mr. Fakhruddin.

A senior IoT analyst from Teksmobile also elaborated on some of the key features of the project. For starters, the poles will have powerful, state-of-the-art sensors to track and collect data on key environmental parameters, like temperature, humidity and soil moisture. Small wind vanes will also be embedded in the poles, to monitor wind speed data. The poles will also have CCTV cameras (street view) with 12mm lens, to detect/report activities within or around the areas under cultivation. According to initial estimates, the line of sight of the pole cameras will be around 50 meters.

The agricultural sector is often plagued by considerable energy wastages. That’s something Mr. Fakhruddin and his team are looking to resolve with the all-new IoT poles for smart agriculture. LED lights will be fitted on the systems to bring down power costs, and AgriPole units will also be equipped to make optimal use of solar energy - for heating & automation requirements, using irrigation pumps & turbines, and other related activities. A well-placed source from the company reported that the team is currently testing the solar panels that would be used on AgriPole.

In a bid to make the smart poles usable in both rural and urban setups, the in-house developers of Teknowledge have incorporated a smart machine learning (ML) module in them. Mr. Fakhruddin gave a live demo on how machine learning can play a key role in data-backed result predictions. On a farm, the ML module would help to ‘identify’ the optimal climatic conditions for the growth of any crop. Predictive maintenance, image analysis and live tracking would also be important functions in smart cities. The focus is entirely on minimising the uncertainty factors.

Responding to queries on how AgriPole might be used in an urban setup, Mr. Fakhruddin pointed out that the smart poles could be easily set up for home and terrace gardening (private gardening), as well as in public spaces. They will also be ideal for ‘intelligent polyhouse  farming’, and might even be usable as ‘smart scarecrows’. Going forward, AgriPole might very well emerge as an innovative and high-utility tool for municipal authorities too, felt the Teksmobile CEO.

In the first round of production, Team Teks has plans to prepare and launch 500 agricultural poles. Accompanying these poles will be a dedicated mobile app - built for the iOS and Android platforms - which will be paired with the AgriPole to receive/display images and generate real-time notifications for the users (farmers in the rural scenario). The app will also send SMS reports to farmers.

Apart from LPWAN technology (LoRa and NB-IoT), Teksmobile’s AgriPole will also be workable in GSM networks. On average, a single pole will have a coverage area of 2-2.5 acres. Crop-growers will not have to invest really big for getting all the advantages of the smart poles - and that, feels Mr. Fakhruddin, will drive adoption really quickly. The poles will have the capacity to deliver results/output as per the precise requirements of each farmer.

While it is exciting to work on a project as innovative as AgriPole, the enormity of the challenge is not lost on Mr. Fakhruddin and his team. That’s precisely why a team of IoT specialists from the company had been involved in researching sensors (environmental and deep root), solar panel management, and the scopes of utilizing artificial intelligence in precision farming - for the last 3 quarters. The smart poles are being set up on the back of in-depth research, the features are indeed cutting-edge - and the Teks Team is confident about its success, in both rural and urban scenarios.

Visit http://teks.co.in to know more about Teksmobile, and the services it has on offer. Call 91-33-40649087 or send emails to info@teks.co.in, to resolve all queries. AgriPole is primed to play an important role in optimising resource utilisation, maximising farm productivity, and bringing down production costs significantly - and it has the potential to revolutionise agriculture totally.