GAIA2: A multifunctional wireless device for enhancing crop management

•Development of a versatile, adaptable and configurable device that could be used in a large variety of precision agriculture scenarios.•The device is completely multifunctional since it could be configured both at hardware and at software levels, which leads to a reduced cost per node.•Several tests have been carried out, both in a laboratory and in real different crops, demonstrating the robustness of the device in several scenarios.

Precision agriculture is a well-known approach that allows to estimate, evaluate and understand crop evolution. This paper describes how such approach is implemented by deploying a wireless sensor network, whose main components are based on the new multifunctional wireless sensor node GAIA2, a fully configurable device (from a hardware and software point of view), that can be properly configured with the aim of acting as any node required during the network deployment and that works with well-known agricultural instrumentation. Several validation tests carried out in real arid and semiarid horticultural crops located at Southern Spain (where the existing water deficit poses a major problem for farmers), demonstrates that it is easy and moderately inexpensive to deploy a GAIA2-based wireless sensor network that helps farmers to improve crop management.