New project will explore, secure Ag-IoT technology

With a $582,987 grant from the National Science Foundation's Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, or EPSCoR, Nirnimesh Ghose aims to develop solutions to enable smart, scalable and secure wireless operations in a modern farm setting.

Ghose, assistant professor in the School of Computing, will collaborate with Mehmet Can Vuran, Dale M. Jensen Chair and Professor in the School of Computing, and Yufeng Ge, professor of biological systems engineering, on the project.

Ag-IoT offers many benefits to ranchers engaged in smart and precision farming practices, including efficiency, profitability, environmental sustainability and the ability to close the supply-demand gap by ensuring high yields. Unfortunately, most existing security options are unable to scale or operate at the necessary levels within these systems, and the lack of enabled privacy and security measures also poses many risks.

"The Ag-IoT field is interesting because it has not been explored much, and the security of it has not been explored," Ghose said. "There are a lot of wireless devices that are deployed to collect data, but if the data is not secure, someone could inject malicious data into the network."