Plant-Wearable Wireless Sensing Solution for Autonomous Monitoring

A plant’s movements reflect their response to the environment, with sub-optimal conditions causing rapid changes that indicate stress. Tracking plant movements presents a distinct way of assessing their physiological condition and detect stress. This paper introduces a novel autonomous wirelessly connected solution for plant movement detection based on a tailored design of a plant-wearable sensor system using an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). The system supports two sensor configurations, a petiole and a leaf module, offering flexibility for a wide range of applications tailored to different crop species, cultivation practices, and operational requirements. Both designs minimize weight and power consumption, balancing this trade-off depending on plant organ rigidity. This work focuses on the energy management and validation of the petiole sensor with a total weight of 15.70 g without casing and a lifetime of 15 months, supporting complete long crop cycles without battery recharging or replacement. The wireless capability allows straightforward deployment and real-time data transfer. Initial in-situ validation confirms that our non-intrusive, cost-effective IMU-enhanced sensor system offers a promising approach for plant sensing and Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled crop monitoring in real-world conditions. The dual-sensor approach enables researchers and growers to adapt monitoring strategies based on specific needs such as battery life constraints, sensor weight limitations, and plant morphology, making it a versatile solution for precision agriculture.