Camalie VineyardsCase Study in Crossbow Mote

Deployment.

Mark Holler

Napa & Palo Alto, Ca. 4/11/06

http://camalie.com

mholler@pacbell.net 650-799-6571

Copyright 2006 Camalie Vineyards, Not to be reproduced without written permission

Background

• Camalie Vineyards is a 4.4 acre hillside vineyard on the western slopes of Napa Valley: Mt Veeder

• Highly varied soil, slope, sun exposure, and water flow, At least 12 distinct areas.

• World class Cabernet Sauvignon grapes; $5K/ton– French clones 337, 338, 191 on rootstocks selected to

compensate for varying vigor across vineyard areas.

• Water is scarce, most wells and reservoirs are dry by the end of the growing season. 60 gal/vine/yr. 300K gal.

Water in the Vineyard

Initial Installation 2005 growing season

• Monitor water getting to the vines and the irrigation system getting it there.

• 1 mote with 3 sensors in each of 4 irrigation blocks

• 2 pressure sensors at irrigation manifold, pre filter and post filter. Monitor tank level and filter status. .

2003-2004 used weather station with 3 soil moisture sensors at one location

Vineyard Installation• At each Mote location:

• 2 soil moisture sensors • 12” and 24” depth• 1 soil temp sensor to calibrate soil moisture sensors

Irrigation Manifold

Vineyard Mote Prototype

• 433MHz Mica2dot• Solar power supply• Up to 6 resistive sensor inputs

Power Supply

• 2 month max battery life now with 10 minute sampling interval

• Decided to use solar power, always there when doing irrigation. Solar cell $10 in small quantities though and need a $.50 regulator.

Network Maps

Irrigation Block Map

13 nodes late 05, Now 18 nodes

Soil Moisture Data

• Red = 12” depth soil moisture• Green= 24” depth soil moisture• Note delay deeper• More frequent, shorter watering keeps water shallow

Irrigation Pressure Sensors

Temp Data

ROI Rationale

• Insurance Policy for vine health• Pumping Energy Savings• Conserve water for late season hot spells. • Better Ripeness Uniformity• Intangibles/

– Wine Quality Improvement• Deficit irrigation; less water > better quality but more risk

– Yield enhancement

Napa Vineyard Investment *

$40K/acre to replant: stakes, wires, endposts Labor, tractor, mower, sprayer.

• 3 years management before first yield; $36k/acre

• Irrigation System ~ $5K/acre

• Wireless Soil Moisture sensor network @ 4 nodes(12 soil moistures)/acre =$1000/acre

• Total Investment to first grapes: $82K/acre * For vineyard ~5 acres

Annual Budget

• Annual Expenses: Management $8k/acre + $300/acre pumping cost +$5.4K/yr. Depr(15yr.) Total $13.7K/acre/year.

• $66/acre/year for wireless sensor network (Small .5%)

Software Development

• Worked through all examples in Getting Started and Tutorial. Good place to start.

• Learned about TinyOS, nesc from UCB docs, • Documentation is good but, somewhat

heterogeneous. Good phone tech support.• Use the Source, code is small and is mostly C• Modified MDA500 sensor board code and

integrated it with one of the lower power mesh network protocols provided.

Moteview, Postgresql

• Moteview is a good app. The UI is right and it has all the essential features needed.

• However, Moteview is a client app for PostgreSQL which makes remote connections difficult.

• Performance is poor when data base gets large, ~100MB 10 seconds – 10 minute to display a graph on a 2GHz Pentium 4.

Would like to have

• Faster Moteview/Postgresql solution– Linux + Apache + WebGraph package + data

base. Seems logical.

• Catalog of the Mesh Networking Code modules with data sheets. Power consumption, sampling rate, error rate, etc.

• Inexpensive Mica2dot module. The socket board costs $28.00.

Other ideas

• Deer monitoring, Open Gates, Easement traffic.

• Wine storage temp

• Wine Making, Temps, CO2 level, flow

• Irrigation Control, remote valves.

• Green Home Monitoring; septic, heating

• Sensors embedded in the vines.

Conclusions• Cost of wireless sensor network is small for a high

value crop like Napa Grapes. – WSN greatly improves visibility of soil moisture levels, the

most important parameter in growing.

• Crossbow mote hardware is robust. Tools are adequate, inexpensive. Expect an embedded design cycle:1yr. Useful prototype and data within 6 months.

• Infrastructure for web serving WSN data is oddly missing. Should bundle a server with motes in the design kit. Linux servers now cost $149.00 at Frys! Stargate costs $595 and has no disk.