Smart Machinery and Devices for Reducing Risks from Human-Machine Interference in Agriculture: A Review
Author(s)
Date Issued
2022
Type
conferenceObject
Volume
252
Start Page
195
End Page
204
Abstract
Wireless devices for smart farming can be of great help in remote sensing, machinery automation and precision farming, but they can also provide safety enhancements by reducing risks like exposure to physical agents, chemicals, and tractor overturn. Although technology advances can be beneficial to agricultural safety, it must be said that the integration of wireless devices with farming machinery represents a possible new source of hazards: loss of communication, wrong timing, incorrect or partial information could lead to accidents even without any preexistent or latent failure as a trigger. This review aims therefore to frame the evolution of safety advances in wireless and smart farming applications for agriculture with a focus on safety designs, fail-safe system engineering and wireless network infrastructures such as Bluetooth, GSM, Wi-Fi 802.11 and 802.15 like ZigBee, Lo-Ra technologies and even unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).
A set of 53 papers starting from 1987 until 2021, involving practical applications, have been deeply analyzed and as a result advantages and disadvantages for every solution have been identified. Further conclusions have been drawn about limits and perspectives of sensing systems for obstacle avoidance like lasers, image processing, Bluetooth low-energy, RFID passive systems and Artificial Intelligence (AI).