Sensor-driven automated shed and irrigation for summer tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) production in Bangladesh under the changing climate

• Smart farming is a concept that may use the Internet of Things (IoT) to automatically operate, remotely control, and monitor crop field conditions and production practices from anywhere. • The IoT enabled sensor-based summer tomato production, a rare practice. The common practice is traditional tunnel polyethylene sheds and surface flooding irrigation, which lead to excessive use of rainwater, temperature, and irrigation and consequently reduce crop productivity. • An IoT-based smart shed and irrigation system was developed and performed well in automating the opening and closing of the shed to prevent high rain, temperature, sunlight, and automated irrigation for crop production under a changing climate. • The results indicated that IoT-enabled sensor-based ON‒OFF helps to produce better yields to protect crops from high rainfall, temperature, and sunlight and that farmers do not need to use large amounts of labor compared to traditional practices. • This study and its findings offer useful insights for producing off-season crops and promoting agricultural automation. The Internet of Things (IoT) enabled sensor-based summer tomato production is a rare practice in Bangladesh and even in South Asia. The traditional practice has tunnel-fixed polyethene sheds to cover crops or cultivate in open fields with surface flooding irrigation, which leads to excess use of rainfall and high temperatures, consequently reducing crop productivity. In open field conditions, the yields of summer tomatoes are affected due to waterlogging and heat stress caused by high rainfall and temperatures. Therefore, this study aimed to innovatively develop a concept of an IoT-enabled sensor-based automated shed and irrigation system for opening and closing based on rain, temperature, and light, along with an automated irrigation system for summer tomato production. The performance of the IoT-enabled shed and automatic drip irrigation system (T 1 ) was evaluated through field experiments and compared with that of the manually operated shed (T 2 ), the traditional tunnel-fixed polyethene shed (T 3 ), and the open field without a shed (T 4 ). The proposed system consisted of (i) hardware (equipment for the shed and sensor systems), (ii) software (a mobile app to control and monitor the system), and (iii) field experiments (integrating hardware and mobile apps for crop production). The results showed that the T 1 system produced 1.11 and 1.67 times more tomato yields compared to T 3 and T 4 practices, respectively, as the shed protected the crop from temperatures above 35 °C, heavy rainfall, and sunlight. The automatic shed with a drip irrigation system reduces labor costs and maintains crop yield. Thus, the IoT-enabled sensor-driven shed and automated irrigation system can be an option for producing off-season tomatoes as well as other high-value crops in a changing climate and contribute to global food and water security.