Self-Powered Smart Beehive Monitoring and Control System (SBMaCS). 2021

Elias Ntawuzumunsi, and Santhi Kumaran, and Louis Sibomana
African Center of Excellence in Internet of Things (ACEIoT), College of Science and Technology, University of Rwanda, KN Street Nyarugenge, Kigali 3900, Rwanda.

Beekeeping in Africa has been practiced for many years through successive generations and along inherited patterns. Beekeepers continue to face challenges in accessing consistent and business-driven markets for their bee products. In addition, the honeybee populations are decreasing due to colony collapse disorder (CCD), fire, loss of bees in swarming, honey buggers and other animals, moths, starvation, cold weather, and Varoa mites. The main issues are related to un-controlled temperature, humidity, and traditional management of beekeeping. These challenges result in low production of honey and colony losses. The control of the environmental conditions within and surrounding the beehives are not available to beekeepers due to the lack of monitoring systems. A Smart Beehive System using Internet of Things (IoT) technology would allow beekeepers to keep track of the amount of honey created in their hives and bee colonies even when they are far from their hives, through mobile phones, which would curtail the challenges currently faced by the beekeepers. However, there are challenges in the design of energy-efficient embedded electronic devices for IoT. A promising solution is to provide energy autonomy to the IoT nodes that will harvest residual energy from ambient sources, such as motion, vibrations, light, or heat. This paper proposes a Self-Powered Smart Beehive Monitoring and Control System (SBMaCS) using IoT to support remote follow-up and control, enhancing bee colonies' security and thus increasing the honey productivity. First, we develop the SBMaCS hardware prototype interconnecting various sensors, such as temperature sensor, humidity sensor, piezoelectric transducer-which will work as a weight sensor-motion sensor, and flame sensor. Second, we introduce energy harvesting models to self-power the SBMaCS by analyzing the (i) energy harvested from adult bees' vibrations, (ii) energy harvesting through the piezoelectric transducer, and (iii) radio frequency energy harvesting. Third, we develop a mobile phone application that interacts with the SBMaCS hardware to monitor and control the various parameters related to the beehives. Finally, the SBMaCS PCB layout is also designed. SBMaCS will help beekeepers to successfully monitor and control some important smart beekeeping activities wherever they are using their mobile phone application.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D006813 Humidity A measure of the amount of WATER VAPOR in the air. Humidities
D000818 Animals Unicellular or multicellular, heterotrophic organisms, that have sensation and the power of voluntary movement. Under the older five kingdom paradigm, Animalia was one of the kingdoms. Under the modern three domain model, Animalia represents one of the many groups in the domain EUKARYOTA. Animal,Metazoa,Animalia
D001516 Bees Insect members of the superfamily Apoidea, found almost everywhere, particularly on flowers. About 3500 species occur in North America. They differ from most WASPS in that their young are fed honey and pollen rather than animal food. Apidae,Apis,Apis mellifera,Apis mellifica,European Honey Bee,Honey Bee Drone,Bee,Bee, European Honey,Drone, Honey Bee,European Honey Bees,Honey Bee Drones,Honey Bee, European
D056630 Beekeeping The management and maintenance of colonies of honeybees. Apiculture

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