SensorTalk: An IoT Device Failure Detection and Calibration Mechanism for Smart Farming

Abstract

In an Internet of Things (IoT) system, it is essential that the data measured from the sensors are accurate so that the produced results are meaningful. For example, in AgriTalk, a smart farm platform for soil cultivation with a large number of sensors, the produced sensor data are used in several Artificial Intelligence (AI) models to provide precise farming for soil microbiome and fertility, disease regulation, irrigation regulation, and pest regulation. It is important that the sensor data are correctly used in AI modeling. Unfortunately, no sensor is perfect. Even for the sensors manufactured from the same factory, they may yield different readings. This paper proposes a solution called SensorTalk to automatically detect potential sensor failures and calibrate the aging sensors semi-automatically. Numerical examples are given to show the calibration tables for temperature and humidity sensors. When the sensors control the actuators, the SensorTalk solution can also detect whether a failure occurs within a detection delay. Both analytic and simulation models are proposed to appropriately select the detection delay so that, when a potential failure occurs, it is detected reasonably early without incurring too many false alarms. Specifically, our selection can limit the false detection probability to be less than 0.7%.