Wireless Automatic Inspection of Soil and Plants through RFID IoT devices

This paper presents a custom UHF-RFID (Ultra High Frequency-Radio Frequency IDentification) battery-assisted sensor tag for IoT (Internet of Things) smart greenhouse applications. The considered scenario is handled by an automatic RFID robot that gathers phase and sensing data. The tag is designed to be matched to an EM4325 chip, and it is equipped with a set of sensors (temperature, humidity, light intensity, and soil moisture) used to monitor environmental parameters. In addition, through the RFID signal phase shift data, a sorting operation is performed to obtain a complete database where each plant is localized and classified with all microclimate parameters. The system is validated by a measurement campaign that provides accurate environmental data and a reliable sorting operation.