Validate before publishing
Serial telemetry frames use CRC16 checking. Out-of-range or unavailable sensor readings are handled explicitly rather than silently treated as valid.
Case study / 01 — Embedded IoT · Smart agriculture
Smart Orchard IoT.
A field-deployed telemetry and irrigation monitoring system, engineered for the challenges of a real walnut orchard in Thessaly, Greece.
ESP32 + Arduino NanoSensors + CRC16 UARTMQTT + Node-REDInfluxDB + Grafana
Illustrative system concept · not a photograph of the deployment
01 / The project
From physical measurements to useful decisions.
The Smart Orchard system is an independent engineering project deployed in a Chandler walnut orchard. It combines low-cost microcontrollers, field sensors, remote communications and a self-hosted monitoring stack to observe environmental and irrigation conditions.
Beyond the measurements themselves, the engineering focus is on handling invalid data, communication interruptions and recovery in an outdoor installation.
234Walnut trees in the orchard
22Stremmata / ~2.2 hectares
2Microcontroller roles: sensing & gateway
02 / System architecture
Designed as a complete telemetry pipeline.
The implemented field link between Arduino Nano and ESP32 is UART with CRC16 validation. This is not presented as an RS-485 or LoRa fieldbus deployment.
03 / Engineering decisions
Reliability matters in the field.
Watchdog & reset
Firmware watchdog supervision, restart paths and a hardware-controlled Nano reset help recover from some transient firmware or communication failures.
Remote visibility
MQTT reporting, Node-RED flows, InfluxDB time-series data and Grafana dashboards support monitoring without continual visits to the site.
04 / Field documentation
Real evidence, not stock photos.
These panels are reserved for documentation from the actual installation. No fabricated dashboard values or performance statistics are shown.
Field node & enclosureAdd your photo of the installed ESP32 / Arduino hardware
Grafana telemetryAdd a sanitized screenshot with real sensor trends
Field results & test notesAdd measurements, troubleshooting evidence, and a dated field-test summary
Publication note: remove IP addresses, API keys, tokens, device control URLs and private coordinates from screenshots and configuration excerpts.
05 / Technology stack
Hardware to dashboard.
Arduino NanoESP32SHT40DS18B20TensiometerPressure transducerC/C++UART / CRC16Wi-Fi / MQTTNode-REDInfluxDB 2.7GrafanaDocker / Linux
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