Design and Implementation of an Optical Camera Communication System for Wireless Sensor Networking in Farming Fields

Optical camera communication (OCC) is an innovative set of optical wireless communication that exploits the ever-increasing availability of cameras and solid-state lighting equipment to establish low data rate optical links. This paper evaluates the feasibility of implementing OCC links between sensor nodes in a field outdoors and a camera connected to the cloud in an emulated farming environment. The power efficiency and low maintenance constraints of wireless sensor networks (WSN) are considered in the hardware design of the nodes, which include an energy harvesting system. The system is capable of transmitting 7.5 bps per node at distances of about 100 m. The proposed system is considered a cost-effective and scalable solution for WSN in precision farming.