Ontology-Based IoT Middleware Approach for Smart Livestock Farming toward Agriculture 4.0: A Case Study for Controlling Thermal Environment in a Pig Facility
Integrated farm management (IFM) is promoted as a whole farm approach toward Agriculture 4.0, incorporating smart farming technologies for attempting to limit livestock production’s negative impacts on the environment while increasing productivity with regard to the economic viability of rural commu...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2022-03-01
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| Series: | Agronomy |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/12/3/750 |
| _version_ | 1827629534030069760 |
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| author | Eleni Symeonaki Konstantinos G. Arvanitis Dimitrios Piromalis Dimitrios Tseles Athanasios T. Balafoutis |
| author_facet | Eleni Symeonaki Konstantinos G. Arvanitis Dimitrios Piromalis Dimitrios Tseles Athanasios T. Balafoutis |
| author_sort | Eleni Symeonaki |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Integrated farm management (IFM) is promoted as a whole farm approach toward Agriculture 4.0, incorporating smart farming technologies for attempting to limit livestock production’s negative impacts on the environment while increasing productivity with regard to the economic viability of rural communities. The Internet of Things (IoT) may serve as an enabler to ensure key properties—such as interconnectivity, scalability, agility, and interoperability—in IFM systems so that they could provide object-based services while adapting to dynamic changes. This paper focuses on the problem of facilitating the management, processing, and sharing of the vast and heterogeneous data points generated in livestock facilities by introducing distributed IoT middleware as the core of a responsive and adaptive service-oriented IFM system, specifically targeted to enable smart livestock farming in view of its unique requirements. The proposed IoT middleware encompasses the context-awareness approach via the integration of a flexible ontology-based structure for modeling and reasoning. The IoT middleware was assessed in actual conditions on the grounds of a case study for smart control of the thermal environment in a medium-sized pig farming facility. As derived from the obtained evaluation results, the system appears to perform quite satisfactorily in terms of computational performance as well as ontology coherence, consistency, and efficiency. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T13:53:49Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-2cd83bc9fc104d64a52b71bc12eb3b3f |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2073-4395 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T13:53:49Z |
| publishDate | 2022-03-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Agronomy |
| spelling | doaj.art-2cd83bc9fc104d64a52b71bc12eb3b3f2023-11-30T20:45:36ZengMDPI AGAgronomy2073-43952022-03-0112375010.3390/agronomy12030750Ontology-Based IoT Middleware Approach for Smart Livestock Farming toward Agriculture 4.0: A Case Study for Controlling Thermal Environment in a Pig FacilityEleni Symeonaki0Konstantinos G. Arvanitis1Dimitrios Piromalis2Dimitrios Tseles3Athanasios T. Balafoutis4Department of Natural Resources Management and Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural University of Athens, Iera Odos 75, 11855 Athens, GreeceDepartment of Natural Resources Management and Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural University of Athens, Iera Odos 75, 11855 Athens, GreeceDepartment of Industrial Design and Production Engineering, University of West Attica, Thivon 250 and P. Ralli, 12244 Athens, GreeceDepartment of Industrial Design and Production Engineering, University of West Attica, Thivon 250 and P. Ralli, 12244 Athens, GreeceCenter for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH), Institute for Bio-Economy and Agri-Technology (iBO), Dimarchou Georgiadou 118, 38333 Volos, GreeceIntegrated farm management (IFM) is promoted as a whole farm approach toward Agriculture 4.0, incorporating smart farming technologies for attempting to limit livestock production’s negative impacts on the environment while increasing productivity with regard to the economic viability of rural communities. The Internet of Things (IoT) may serve as an enabler to ensure key properties—such as interconnectivity, scalability, agility, and interoperability—in IFM systems so that they could provide object-based services while adapting to dynamic changes. This paper focuses on the problem of facilitating the management, processing, and sharing of the vast and heterogeneous data points generated in livestock facilities by introducing distributed IoT middleware as the core of a responsive and adaptive service-oriented IFM system, specifically targeted to enable smart livestock farming in view of its unique requirements. The proposed IoT middleware encompasses the context-awareness approach via the integration of a flexible ontology-based structure for modeling and reasoning. The IoT middleware was assessed in actual conditions on the grounds of a case study for smart control of the thermal environment in a medium-sized pig farming facility. As derived from the obtained evaluation results, the system appears to perform quite satisfactorily in terms of computational performance as well as ontology coherence, consistency, and efficiency.https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/12/3/750agriculture 4.0integrated farm managementsmart livestock farminginternet of thingsmiddlewarecontext-awareness |
| spellingShingle | Eleni Symeonaki Konstantinos G. Arvanitis Dimitrios Piromalis Dimitrios Tseles Athanasios T. Balafoutis Ontology-Based IoT Middleware Approach for Smart Livestock Farming toward Agriculture 4.0: A Case Study for Controlling Thermal Environment in a Pig Facility Agronomy agriculture 4.0 integrated farm management smart livestock farming internet of things middleware context-awareness |
| title | Ontology-Based IoT Middleware Approach for Smart Livestock Farming toward Agriculture 4.0: A Case Study for Controlling Thermal Environment in a Pig Facility |
| title_full | Ontology-Based IoT Middleware Approach for Smart Livestock Farming toward Agriculture 4.0: A Case Study for Controlling Thermal Environment in a Pig Facility |
| title_fullStr | Ontology-Based IoT Middleware Approach for Smart Livestock Farming toward Agriculture 4.0: A Case Study for Controlling Thermal Environment in a Pig Facility |
| title_full_unstemmed | Ontology-Based IoT Middleware Approach for Smart Livestock Farming toward Agriculture 4.0: A Case Study for Controlling Thermal Environment in a Pig Facility |
| title_short | Ontology-Based IoT Middleware Approach for Smart Livestock Farming toward Agriculture 4.0: A Case Study for Controlling Thermal Environment in a Pig Facility |
| title_sort | ontology based iot middleware approach for smart livestock farming toward agriculture 4 0 a case study for controlling thermal environment in a pig facility |
| topic | agriculture 4.0 integrated farm management smart livestock farming internet of things middleware context-awareness |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/12/3/750 |
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