Precision indoor agricuLture with Aerial sensing and Networked baTtery-free IoT

Objective

PLANT targets maintenance-free, high-resolution monitoring in smart indoor farming by replacing battery-powered nodes with dense, battery-free backscatter tags and using a UAV as a roaming edge device. The drone beams RF energy to wake the tags, collects their readings in flight, and co-captures NIR imagery to map plant-level micro-climate. The project advances the state of the art by (i) proving reliable RF energy delivery from a moving platform in GNSS-denied, multipath-rich greenhouses; (ii) achieving stable, energy-aware navigation and beam pointing; and (iii) demonstrating collision-tolerant multi-tag backscatter in motion, so dozens of sensors can be read in a single pass. Fused sensor–imagery data produce actionable maps (temperature/humidity gradients, simple water-stress indicators), which are validated against portable references. A season-long pilot quantifies impact on maintenance effort, water use per kg of yield, and avoided e-waste.