Supporting SmartAg Innovation
For the past year, CIEI partnered with RIoT to provide IoT instrumentation for the USDA funded SmartAg facility in Wilson, NC (Wilson’s Smart Agriculture Test Bed moves from launch to active trials). ECU students in 2 capstone projects deployed environmental and soil sensors for the facility, sensors supported by the CIEI developed platform PITON. This instrumentation is mentioned in the recent feasibility study conducted by RIoT to evaluate the feasibility of specialty crop production using SmartAg technologies in eastern NC.
ECU students installed the local PITON gateway with Mr. Keith Ellis who retired shortly after from a long career with Greenlight. Students deployed multiple sensors throughout the greenhouse and developed a temperature humidity baseline for the facility. The current capstone project led by ECU students from the Department of Technology Systems are expanding the deployment of sensors to support monitoring soil parameters in support of specialty crops.