International Journal of Aquatic Science

ISSN: 2008-8019
Vol 12, Issue 02, 2021

Geo-tagging of plantation through limited

internet connectivity
Chethan A S1, Muneshwara M S2
1
Department of Mathematics, BMS Institute of Technology and Management, Bangalore
560064, [email protected]
2
Department of Mathematics, BMS Institute of Technology and Management, Bangalore
560064, muneshwarams@ bmsit.in

Abstract: In this paper we mainly focus on one application of Geo-Tagging where we need
to identify a mobile application whose power of GPS and mobile network connectivity of a
smartphone can be harnessed and used to geo-tag huge plantations whose land area span
across many square kilometres, and which can help owners or workers of the plantation to
know which and what type of plant species are grown at what part of the plantation.

Keywords: Geo tagging, Plantation, IOT

1. INTRODUCTION:

Smartphones, since their birth, have changed the lives of people who use them. Especially
now, people have found new ways of using smartphones one could never even imagine. One
such application is Geo-Tagging. This is a process of adding new information to a
geographical location in the form of geospatial metadata which may contain and is not
limited to name of the place, latitude-longitude, altitude, photographs, video, audio, websites,
QR-codes, RSS Feed, etc. This feature is used by most applications for geo-tagging places of
visit by users across the world. Some examples: Instagram is an application which is used to
share photos and geo-tag them wherever people visit. Google Maps has a feature called
Google Local Guide where people who visit places of tourism or heritage, can post pictures
and videos they shoot, so that other users can look up the place on Google Maps and obtain
information.
Ines Amaral [1] introduced Geo-tagging as a feature present in Web 2.0. Geotagging is the
process of adding geospatial metadata. The geo-tagging processes derived from global
position systems (GPS), which are based on a latitude and longitude coordinates model. Thus,
the positions assumed by geotagging-enabled information services stem from this pattern.
Geotagging is a feature that is presented individually to users. The users can share locations
and add geolocated data to content. Adding geographical identification metadata to an
information resource attaches value to the content by making it more searchable. it is a
process of identifying geographic locations that empowers development of geographical
databases, geo-referenced Web information, and geo-referenced multimedia.
A framework is proposed by Riyad Dhuny et. al [2] to spread awareness the public in order to
plant trees and share location of plantation on a map. Hardware features of smartphones,
HTML5 specifications, leaf recognition model, social networking, rewarding models are the
features that make the framework popular. This framework will behave as main model to
enhance many educational tools and games to be developed on the platform. It supports basic
operations for platforms indulging in plant protection and afforestation.

5067
International Journal of Aquatic Science
ISSN: 2008-8019
Vol 12, Issue 02, 2021

Suporn Pongnumkul et al [3] focused on the use of a smartphone and how various sensors in
it can be used beneficially in the field of Agriculture. On an estimate, there are around more
than five billion smartphones currently being used in the world. One of the factors that
enhances the smartphones’ capability to help users to perform different tasks is the number of
built-in sensors (e.g., motion sensors, cameras, positioning sensors, and microphones).
Smartphones built with different sensors are opening new applications for rural farmers who
once had low access to the latest agricultural resources like market, weather, etc. MapIT is a
crowd-sourced camera based app for obtaining geo-spatial information of smaller objects and
small agricultural areas.
In developing a database structure, relationships were established correctly between spatial
feature classes and non-spatial feature classes of the rubber tree demonstration farm by
Eduardson et al [4]. The actual results paved for the establishment and assignment of unique
rubber tree identification number determined the exact quantity of trees ready for tapping and
identified available land area considered potential for the expansion of the demonstration
farm.
Mapping of fruit crop plantations using Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS) data in Gujarat
State was carried out jointly by the Directorate of Agriculture, with Bhaskaracharya Institute
for Space Applications and Geo Informatics (BISAG). The major objective of this project
was mapping of fruit crop plantations at village-level and preparation of village-level
Horticultural Atlas of Gujarat State. High spatial resolution digital data from IRS LISS-IV
covering major fruit growing districts in Gujarat state was analysed for identification. Maps
of each village were geo-referenced with satellite data. Fruit crop plantations were located
during field visits and their GPS locations were transferred to the satellite images for unique
identification and accurate mapping. The fruit crops in different districts of Gujarat State
were identified on the high accuracy and precise satellite information based on the planting
pattern along with tree-crown density.
Qian Gyi Yu et al [5] introduced a smartphone-based app, known as eFarm: a crowdsourcing
and human sensing application to accumulate geotagged Agricultural land information at the
land parcel level, on the high resolution remotely-sensed images. Advantages of using the
access of cameras, microphones and recording programs, geographical info, and GPS, allow a
number of practical applications to be created, both in farming and its management.
Stutee Gupta et al [6] geo-tagged about 70 tree species which were commonly grown on their
campus, with data such as provided a description of trees in terms of their distribution,
classification, flower, fruiting, and economic importance along with a picture for easy
identification. This was made by a in house made web application using Web-GIS. There
after investigations were made by many authors in different directions.
In this paper we mainly focus on one application of Geo-Tagging where we need to identify a
mobile application whose power of GPS and mobile network connectivity of a smartphone
can be harnessed and used to geo-tag huge plantations whose land area span across many
square kilometers, and which can help owners or workers of the plantation to know which
and what type of plant species are grown at what part of the plantation. While many places
including forest land and agriculture have a good amount of network and internet
connectivity, in some parts of the world in countries like India, and Africa, a stable, reliable,
and fast network and internet connectivity is still a long shot.

5068
International Journal of Aquatic Science
ISSN: 2008-8019
Vol 12, Issue 02, 2021

2. TECHNOLOGY USED:
Global Positioning System
The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally called as Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based
radionavigation system owned by the US government and operated by the United States
Space Force. This is one of the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) that
provides geolocation and timestamp information to a GPS receiver anywhere on or near the
Earth where there is an clear line of sight to any of the four or more GPS satellites. Obstacles
such as mountains, forests and buildings block the relatively weakened GPS signals.
There are 24 main GPS satellites that orbit Earth every 12 hours, sending a synchronized
signal from each individual satellite. Because the satellites are moving in different directions,
a user on the ground receives the signals at slightly different times. When at least four
satellites get in touch with the receiver, it can calculate where the said user is – often to a
precision of just a few feet, for civilian use.
The GPS need not require the user to transmit any data, and it operates exclusively of any
cellular or internet reception, though these technologies improve the capabilities of the GPS
location information. GPS provides many critical positioning abilities to civil, commercial,
and military, users all over the world. The US government developed GPS, performs
maintenance, and is readily available to any user with a GPS receiver.
The three segments of GPS are:
 Space (Satellites) — The satellites circling the Earth, transmitting signals to users on
geographical position and time of day.
 Ground Control — The Control Segment is made up of Earth-based monitor
stations, master control stations and ground antenna. Control activities include
tracking and operating the satellites in space and monitoring transmissions. There are
monitoring stations on almost every continent in the world, including North and South
America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia.
 User equipment — GPS receivers and transmitters including items like watches,
smartphones and telematic devices.
A single satellite broadcasts a microwave signal which is picked up by a GPS device and
used to calculate the distance from the GPS device to the satellite.
There are likely thousands of applications for GPS systems, ranging from everything to
helping hikers navigate in remote areas, to assisting farmers with precisely seeding their
fields, to assisting drones with finding their targets.
The design and implementation of precision agriculture has made possible by GIS and GPS.
These technologies allow combining real-time data with precise position information, leading
to the efficient extrapolation and analysis of huge amounts of geo-spatial information. GPS-
based use cases in implementing precision farming are used for farm planning, field mapping,
soil sampling, tractor guidance, crop scouting and yield mapping. GPS also enables farmers
to do work during reduced visibility field conditions such as storms, rains, and dust.

Cellular Network
A Cellular network or Mobile network is a microwave radio network distributed over land
regions known as cells, each of them served by at least one location-fixed transceiver,
referred to as a cell site or base station. In a cellular network, each cell uses varying set of
frequencies from neighbouring cells, to avoid interference and provide true bandwidth within
each cell.

5069
International Journal of Aquatic Science
ISSN: 2008-8019
Vol 12, Issue 02, 2021

Fig. 1: Cellular Network

Cellular networks are high-speed, high-capability voice and data communication networks
with multimedia and seamless roaming capabilities for supporting cellular devices. With the
major rise in popularity of cellular devices, these networks are used for more than just
entertainment and phone calls. They have become the main means of communication for
business transactions, emergencies, mission-critical services like 911.
Advantages of Cellular Network:
 It is flexible enough to use the features and functions of almost all public and private
networks.
 It has increased channel capacity.
 It consumes less power.
 It can be distributed to cover larger areas.
 It reduces interference from other signals.
Applications of Cellular Networks:
 Operator – Consumer applications: Mobile, smart TV’s, video conferencing, Voice
over IP.
 Machine – Machine applications: Data telemetry and automotive applications like
connected cars, buses, etc.
 Mobile web services: Video and music streaming, finance, and social networking
applications.
Firebase Database and Storage
The Firebase Realtime Database is a cloud-hosted database. Data is stored as JSON and in
real-time to every connected client. When you build cross-platform apps with our Android,
iOS and JavaScript SDKs, all of your clients share one Realtime Database instance and
automatically receive updates with the newest data. Cloud Storage for Firebase is a powerful,
simple, and cost-effective object storage service built for Google scale. The Firebase SDKs
for Cloud Storage add Google security to file uploads and downloads for your Firebase apps,
regardless of network quality.

3. PROBLEM DEFINITION
Using the application of Geo-tagging, we need to identify a mobile application whose power
of GPS and mobile network connectivity of a smartphone can be harnessed and used to Geo-
tag huge plantations whose land area span across many square kilometers, and which can
help owners or workers of the plantation, with very limited network reliability and internet
connectivity.

5070
International Journal of Aquatic Science
ISSN: 2008-8019
Vol 12, Issue 02, 2021

4. WORKING PRINCIPLE
A Photograph captured on an Android Mobile device consists of the following information:
 The photograph.
 The smartphone make (brand), model, year of manufacture.
 The specifications of the camera at the time of capture – aperture, ISO, focal length.
 Exchangeable Image File format (EXIF) data which contains – date and time of
capture, geo-spatial data such as latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates, and
approximate location name of the place where the picture was taken.
We are interested in the EXIF data to be able to geo-tag trees and plants, where we should be
able to add the following data:
 Date and time of capture,
 Geo-spatial data such as latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates,
 Type and name of tree/plant species,
 Number of trees in the captured photograph.
Below is an example of the data generated when a picture is taken on an Android device.

Fig. 2: The Image Fig. 3: The EXIF data of Image Fig. 4: The approximate
location of the geo-tagged
image

An Android application named Guru Nanak 550, has been identified as an app which uses the
camera, GPS sensors, and the internet to help users geo-tag plantations and manage them.
Published in 2018, this application has been downloaded more than 1 Trillion times from the
Google Play Store.
This app was designed as a part of celebrating the 550th Birth anniversary of Guru Nanak,
and to encourage people plant trees and medicinal plants, and geo-tag them using the app.

Fig. 5: About the App Fig. 6: Login Screen

5071
International Journal of Aquatic Science
ISSN: 2008-8019
Vol 12, Issue 02, 2021

Avalahalli State Forest

Fig. 7: Main Menu Fig. 8: Add New Plantation

Fig 9: Adding location coordinates to photo Fig. 10: All Plantations

Fig. 11: View Plantation

Workflow of the application:

 User has to register themselves on this application with name, email address and
phone number.
 User should then login to the app, with registered email and password.
 User has to navigate to the main menu, choose “New Plantation”, and enter the details
such as Location, Date of Plantation, Number of trees, Type of tree, Remarks.
 Under the location section, user will be prompted to turn on GPS, if not enabled. The
current location will be determined. User may wish to submit the current location, or
choose his/her own location and save the same.
 The user can either capture or browse already saved multiple photos or videos, and
upload to the application.

5072
International Journal of Aquatic Science
ISSN: 2008-8019
Vol 12, Issue 02, 2021

 Once submitted, the user can view their plantations from the main menu by either
choosing “My Plantations” or “My Plantation Map”.
 User can also view all the plantations, created by other users of the application
worldwide.
The application itself is hosted on Google Cloud, and uses Google’s Firebase Database to
store user and geo-spatial information, and Google’s Firebase Storage to store media assets
such as photos and videos.
How Images and Videos are uploaded to Firebase storage in low internet connectivity:
 This application uses a python library called image slicer, which is used to split a
given image into several small images, or a given video into several small video files.
 By this way, the application will work in the background to send these small images
through the 2G network seamlessly.

Fig. 12: Image Slicer logic

Fig. 13: Original Image and Split images

5073
International Journal of Aquatic Science
ISSN: 2008-8019
Vol 12, Issue 02, 2021

5. APPLICATIONS
1. Geo-Tagging Plantations: Geo-Tagging can be used to map, estimate, and analyze
different species of flora across a huge area.
2. Logistics: Geo-tagging can be used in large warehouses and go-downs to keep track
of items or raw materials, which will enhance organization and maintenance.
3. Museums: Nowadays, museums have audiobook devices, which act as audio guides
for visitors. A tourist when he/she uses the device and moves around the museum, the
audiobook, using geo-tagged information of places and artifacts, will automatically
play the relevant information to the tourist.
4. Infrastructure: Geo-tagging of assets will ensure better monitoring, recording, and
terrain mapping for future development works.
5. Crime and Cyber Crime: Police and Crime departments geo-tag crime scenes to map
and thereby use measures to increase and control vigilance at such places, and also
can be used as a useful tool for criminological research.
6. Geo-Tagging visited places: Geo-Tagging plays such an important role in applications
like Google Maps, where anyone who visits a place can upload a picture or a video of
the place with some useful information, so that it is readily accessible around the
world.

6. REFERENCES

[1] Ines Amaral, Encyclopedia of Social Media and Politics, Sage Publications, 2014.
[2] Riyad Dhuny, “An open framework to geotag and locate plants around the world”,
International Conference on Smart Technologies and Management for Computing,
Communication, Controls, Energy and Materials (ICSTM),
DOI: 10.1109/ICSTM.2015.7225405, 2015.
[3] Suporn Pongnumkul, Pimwadee Chaovalit, and Navaporn Surasvadi, “Applications of
Smartphone-Based Sensors in Agriculture: A Systematic Review of Research”,
Journal of Sensors, vol.2 015, Article ID 195308, pp 1-18, 2015.
[4] Eduardson E. Talosig, Cerenio Adriatico, Fil Ryan P. Yap, “Profiling and Geo-
Tagging of Rubber Tree Plantation through Geographic Information System”, Open
Access Library Journal, 6: e5460. https://doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1105460, 2019.
[5] Qiangyi Yu, Yun Shi, Huajun Tang, Peng Yang, Ankun Xie, Bin Liu and Wenbin Wu,
“eFarm: A Tool for Better Observing Agricultural Land Systems”, Sensors, vol. 17,
pp. 453; doi:10.3390/s17030453, 2017.
[6] Stutee Gupta, Ammani Kandru2 and Sarnam Singh, “Active Learning Technique for
Botany Education in Campus Environment using Open Source Web GIS Application”,
Proceedings of National Conference on Open Source GIS: Opportunities and
Challenges, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT (BHU), Varanasi October 9-10,
2015.
[7] Chu Qi, Bogdan M. Strimbu and John Sessions, “Accurate Geo-Referencing of Trees
with No or Inaccurate Terrestrial Location Devices”, Remote Sens., vol.11(16),
1877; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11161877, 2019.
[8] Talosig, Eduardson & Adriatico, Cerenio & Yap, Fil, “Profiling and Geo-Tagging of
Rubber Tree Plantation through Geographic Information System”, OALib. Vol. 06. Pp.
1-14. 10.4236/oalib.1105460, 2019.

5074
International Journal of Aquatic Science
ISSN: 2008-8019
Vol 12, Issue 02, 2021

[9] Siciliano Pietro, Pongnumkul Suporn, Chaovalit Pimwadee, Surasvadi Navaporn,

“Applications of Smartphone-Based Sensors in Agriculture: A Systematic Review of
Research
[10] Yu, Q., Shi, Y., Tang, H., Yang, P., Xie, A., Liu, B., & Wu, W. (2017). eFarm: A
Tool for Better Observing Agricultural Land Systems. Sensors (Basel, Switzerland),
17(3), 453. https://doi.org/10.3390/s17030453.
[11] Strimbu, Bogdan M., Chu Qi, and John Sessions. 2019. "Accurate Geo-Referencing
of Trees with No or Inaccurate Terrestrial Location Devices" Remote Sensing 11, no.
16: 1877. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11161877.
[12] Patel, Ajay & Dalwadi, Apurva & Kathota, Jaydipsinh & Suthar, Jignesh &
Kalubarme, Manik. (2017). Horticultural Fruit Crop Plantations Mapping using Geo-
informatics Technology in Gujarat State, India. International Journal of Advanced
Remote Sensing and GIS. 6. 2033-2049. 10.23953/cloud.ijarsg.35.
[13] Divya, C & Kumar, K & Vasantharaj, R & Stalin, Leo. (2020). Evaluation and
Implementation of Precision Agriculture using Unmanned Aerial System.
[14] Gupta, Stutee & Kandru, Ammani & Singh, Sarnam. (2015). Active Learning
Technique for Botany Education in Campus Environment using Open-Source Web
GIS Application.
[15] Peng Liu, Thomas F. LaPorta, Kameswari Kotapati, (2013), Chapter 17 - Cellular
Network Security.
[16] Costa M.L., Amaral I. (2020) Communication Design and Space
Narratives.Vijaykumar S. Bidve, Vinod V. KimbhuneShaik Naser Yogesh B. Gurav,
(2021). Traffic Zone Warning and Violation Detection Using Mobile Computing.
[17] Mohammed I.B., Isa S.M. (2021) The Role of Internet of Things (IoT) in the
Containment and Spread of the Novel COVID-19 Pandemic.
[18] M. Khanapurkar, R. Kaushik, R. Mathur, P. Choudhari, R. Gupta and N. Dheer,
"Design and Implementation of Cloud-Based Smart Parking Management System,"
2021
[19] Sadkhan, S. B., & Abbas, N. A. (2014). Privacy and Security of Wireless
Communication Networks.
[20] R. Dhuny, G. Sajeevan and S. Pardeshi, "An open framework to geo-tag and locate
plants around the world," 2015 International Conference on Smart Technologies and
Management for Computing, Communication, Controls, Energy and Materials
(ICSTM), 2015, pp. 153-158, doi:10.1109/ICSTM.2015.7225405.
[21] P. Shriram and S. Mhamane, "Android App to Connect Farmers to Retailers and
Food Processing Industry," 2018 3rd International Conference on Inventive
Computation Technologies (ICICT), 2018, pp. 284-287, doi:
10.1109/ICICT43934.2018.9034434.
[22] Sharpe C. (2020) Economic Growth Through Investment into Space Science and
Technology: The African Colocation Programme. In: Froehlich A. (eds) Space
Fostering African Societies. Southern Space Studies. Springer, Cham.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32930-3_4.
[23] Zhuang Y., Chiu D.K.W., Jiang G., Hu H., Jiang N. (2013) Effective Location- Geo-
tagged Image Retrieval for Mobile Culture and Tourism Education. In: Wang JF., Lau
R. (eds) Advances in Web-Based Learning – ICWL 2013. ICWL 2013. Lecture Notes
in Computer Science, vol 8167. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41175-5_16.

5075
International Journal of Aquatic Science
ISSN: 2008-8019
Vol 12, Issue 02, 2021

[24] Josh Brunty, Chapter 5 - Mobile device forensics: threats, challenges, and future
trends. (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-804526-8.00005-8.
[25] Tao Cheng, Xusheng Ji, Gaoxiang Yang, Hengbiao Zheng, Jifeng Ma, Xia Yao, Yan
Zhu, Weixing Cao. DESTIN: A new method for delineating the boundaries of crop
fields by fusing spatial and temporal information from World View and Planet
satellite imagery, Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, (2020)

5076