Formation Control Design for Remote Field Monitoring with IoT-enabled Mobile Robots

Incorporating technological advancements in the farming industry is a growing trend due to the increasing demand for production and resources in agricultural services. With the significant global population increasing yearly, farming services need improvements to cater to it. One approach the farming industry considers is utilizing the Internet of Things (IoT) networks and robotic control systems for better efficiency and sustainability. IoT technology, with its sensors and network devices, allows wireless communication for agricultural services to expand the coverage of their techniques and implement more convenient ways of data sensing and real-time analysis. Also, they introduce control systems and robotics to automate their tasks and procedures, making each service more sustainable and efficient. So, in this work, we take these two and propose an IoT-enabled formation control design to use the strengths of these technologies and present a viable design for more effective and sustainable remote field monitoring. With our IoT network arrangement with the cloud and its gateways, we present a means to expand the reach of the field monitoring service and its coverage to span wider farmlands. In addition, we performed simulation studies that demonstrate the feasibility of our proposed formation tracking control strategy with proven stability. Overall, we present a feasible approach for a more efficient and sustainable remote field monitoring system for farming services using a formation control design with IoTenabled mobile robots.