Analysis of Energy Consumption in a Precision Beekeeping System

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the energy consumption of an autonomous IoT-based beekeeping system to identify efficiency bottlenecks, aiming to develop a sustainable and energy-efficient precision beekeeping solution.

Contribution

It provides a detailed energy profiling of an IoT framework for beekeeping, highlighting key areas for improving energy efficiency and sustainability.

Findings

Identified energy-intensive tasks within the system

Analyzed the energy contribution of sensors and processing units

Proposed guidelines for designing energy-efficient beekeeping IoT systems

Abstract

Honey bees have been domesticated by humans for several thousand years and mainly provide honey and pollination, which is fundamental for plant reproduction. Nowadays, the work of beekeepers is constrained by external factors that stress their production (parasites and pesticides among others). Taking care of large numbers of beehives is time-consuming, so integrating sensors to track their status can drastically simplify the work of beekeepers. Precision bee-keeping complements beekeepers' work thanks to the In-ternet of Things (IoT) technology. If used correctly, data can help to make the right diagnosis for honey bees colony, increase honey production and decrease bee mortality. Providing enough energy for on-hive and in-hive sensors is a challenge. Some solutions rely on energy harvesting, others target usage of large batteries. Either way, it is mandatory to analyze the energy usage of embedded equipment in order to design an energy efficient and autonomous bee monitoring system. This paper relies on a fully autonomous IoT framework that collects environmental and image data of a beehive. It consists of a data collecting node (environmental data sensors, camera, Raspberry Pi and Arduino) and a solar energy supplying node. Supported services are analyzed task by task from an energy profiling and efficiency standpoint , in order to identify the highly pressured areas of the framework. This first step will guide our goal of designing a sustainable precision beekeeping system, both technically and energy-wise.