A Review of Evolution of Internet of Things (IoT) and its Significant Impact in the Field of Precision Agriculture

Abstract

Agriculture is swiftly moving towards a digital transformation from conventional mechanization to a prescriptive "Agriculture 4.0" model. This survey offers a critical assessment of the evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT) and its application in Precision Agriculture (PA) systems. We assess the technological evolution from early Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) to new Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWAN) like NB-IoT and LoRaWAN, which solve the long-standing deployment issue of battery life in rural coverage. This review critically examines more than 50 impactful publications, centering on novel deployments of multi-modal sensors to support site-specific farming, adaptive irrigation and real-time livestock monitoring. Our report differs from existing surveys in explicitly considering the architectural evolution to Edge-Fog computing, driven by the rapid expansion in data volumes of high-resolution soil sensing and atmospheric monitoring. We benchmark the merits of connectivity protocols, showcasing their impact on resource-efficient practices, such as reported reductions in water and fertilizer use. Finally, we idensify key challenges, such as platform interoperability, data security in remote nodes, and the likely integration of 5G-powered robotic swarms. The review provides a guide to researchers and industry partners about the current state and evolution of the agricultural IoT landscape.