Wireless Sensor Network for Environmental Monitoring in Pitaya Farming

The pitaya, or dragon fruit, is a tropical fruit valued for its adaptability to arid climates and its high nutritional content. It relies on artificial lighting and environmental monitoring to sustain or boost production. However, these systems face challenges related to energy efficiency in remote open-field crops that have limited access to electricity services. This paper presents the development and validation of a low-power environmental monitoring system for pitaya cultivation in Peru. The system was deployed in two distinct climatic regions: Ica (coastal) and Iquitos (forest). It consists of a gateway and two sensor nodes forming a star topology using LoRa communication. Each sensor node captures critical parameters, temperature, relative humidity (RH), illuminance, and battery level, every 15 minutes, achieving up to two months of autonomous operation on a single 1000 mAh battery with a sleep mode current of approximately 500μA. The results show reliable long-range transmission and long-term environmental monitoring. Although the system was tested in a limited 20m2 prototype area, it showed reliable performance and demonstrated potential for scaling up to larger fields. Compared to other agricultural wireless sensor networks, the system showed competitive energy efficiency. Future enhancements, including network expansion, integrated lighting control, and additional sensors, will further scale this solution to larger fields, fostering data-driven agriculture in Peru's remote regions.