DESIGNING RESILIENT AGRICULTURAL IOT NETWORKS THROUGH DECENTRALIZED DATA VERIFICATION AND TRANSPARENT GOVERNANCE MECHANISMS

Abstract

The rapid advancement of communication technologies has accelerated the development of the Internet of Things (IoT), enabling the widespread deployment of connected devices and generating substantial volumes of data that require efficient processing and management. As IoT applications expand across geographically distributed environments, conventional centralized management systems face growing challenges related to cybersecurity, system reliability, scalability, and data confidentiality. To address these concerns, this study presents a block chain-integrated IoT framework for agricultural sensor networks that aims to improve data security, transparency, and controlled accessibility. The proposed architecture combines IoT-enabled sensing devices with a permissioned block chain to maintain a decentralized and tamper-evident record of device activities and data exchanges. Smart contracts are incorporated to automate access-control policies, regulate interactions between users and devices, and support sensor-data monitoring and device management. The framework is implemented using NodeMCU microcontrollers and a permissioned block chain platform, with its performance assessed in terms of latency, throughput, and resource consumption. Its practical feasibility is further examined through a cotton farming case study that incorporates automated irrigation to support more efficient water management. The reported experimental results demonstrate a 35% reduction in water consumption without a decrease in crop yield, while the system also provides mechanisms for detecting and preventing unauthorized alterations to recorded data. A comparative evaluation examines the framework's scalability and resilience in relation to conventional centralized approaches, particularly in environments with limited computational resources. By integrating IoT-based environmental monitoring with block chain-enabled verification and decentralized control, this research explores an approach to making agricultural operations more secure, transparent, and resource-efficient. The findings highlight the potential of block chain–IoT integration to support sustainable agricultural practices and reliable, data-driven decision-making, with possible applications extending to other industrial domains.

Keywords: NodeMCU, Data-driven, Decision-Making, Industrial Sector.