Smart Industry 1/2018

IoT, the oyster said
■ Can mollusks save the planet?
Oysters are filter feeders, which means they often
absorb contaminants as well as food from their
environment, substances that may be harmful to
humans. Oyster harvesting is usually controlled by
public authorities and collections are suspended
temporarily if there is cause for alarm. Rainwater
washes contaminants from the land and into the
waterways where the oysters grow, so farmers
depend heavily on precise meteorological data to
determine the right time for harvesting. If the harvest
is stopped unnecessarily, it can cost the oyster farmers
a great deal of money in lost sales.
Just off the Australian island of Tasmania, measuring
stations using the Bosch ProSyst IoT platform have
been installed in the immediate vicinity of oyster
beds. These measure the depth and salinity of the
water, as well as temperature and atmospheric
pressure. Algorithms developed by local startup
The Yield AgTec Solutions record and analyze the
data, allowing farmers to check their computers or
smartphones for the ideal time to harvest. Bosch
has developed the system in cooperation with The
Yield and supplies the hardware, software, and realtime
data management.
As Jesse Reader, a Bosch associate involved in
the project, points out, the company’s experience
in the automotive industry proved to be of great
benefit, since this is all about making sensitive
technology function reliably in a harsh environment.
It all goes to help the oyster farmers optimize their
harvests and become more profitable. As a result, it
is now possible to reduce unnecessary closures by
as much as 30%, which could potentially save the
Australian oyster industry several millions of dollars
a year. In addition, collected information is supplied
free of charge to scientific institutions, where it is used
to combat the spread of oyster diseases that could
spell financial ruin for farmers and their operations.
Bosch and The Yield are also teaming up on further
applications for smart and
more sustainable agriculture,
where the focus is on
collecting and analyzing
microclimatic data.
“If we want to be able to
feed the world’s population
in the future without
destroying the planet,
Ros Harvey
founder and managing
director of The Yield
AgTech Solutions
intelligent agriculture is
the only answer,” says
Ros Harvey, the founder
and managing director
of The Yield.
New IoT solution for oyster farmers
Oysters filter nutrients
They are especially
sensitive to changes in
water quality.
Influencing factors on growth:
Water
temperature
Water salinity
Water levels
Climate change
alters these conditions.
Aftermaths:
• Oysters are increasingly
infected with dangerous viruses
• Crop failures are becoming
more common
Sensors
collect data
Data is analyzed
at a computer center
Oyster banks
Oyster farmer
makes decisions about
ideal harvest times
Universities and
research institutes
are conducting
research on viruses
Benefit:
Crop failures
can be reduced by
up to 30 percent.
Bosch is supporting the Australian startup The Yield.
sources: TheYield.com, Bosch
Counting sheep
■ Herds may run, but they can't hide
This summer, Telia Norway launched a first-of-its-kind
pilot project where 1,000 sheep were equipped with
NarrowBand IoT (NB-IoT) collars and tracked while
on summer pasture. NB-IoT is a new cost-efficient
communications technology that enables excellent
coverage indoors, outdoors, and in the ground. It is
ideal for things that run on battery or which only
send data occasionally.
Telia Norway and startup Nortrace have fitted the
sheep with the modules to allow farmers to monitor
each sheep’s location and state of well-being while
they are on summer pasture in Rogaland on the
southern tip of Norway. In the old days, at the end of
the summer pasture, ten to12 shepherds would go to
gather the sheep – and
they usually found about
90% of them. The rest
could have become lost
or got stuck somewhere
in the snowy highlands.
With the new system, the
farmer receives an alarm
on his smartphone if an
animal has not moved for
a long time and may be in
distress, and, at the end
of summer, there will be
Jon Christian Hillestad
Head of enterprise at
Telia Norway
no more problems in finding the missing 10%.
"This is a great example of how IoT and new
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