TY - JOUR
T1 - An Interoperable Reference Architecture for Smart Farming Platforms: Integrating Sensors, Machinery, Farm-Management Systems, APIs, and Analytics
AU - David Osei
AU - Akua Afriyie
AU - Kofi Adu
JF - Journal of Smart Farming, Precision Agriculture and Data Science
Y1 - 2024
VL - 1
IS - 2
SP - 81
N2 - Smart farming platforms are becoming central infrastructures for digital agriculture because they connect field-level sensing, machinery records, farm-management information systems, remote sensing inputs, advisory services, analytics modules, and decision-support tools. Yet many platforms remain limited by fragmented data flows, incompatible formats, weak semantic alignment, uneven governance arrangements, and poor integration with farm decision workflows. This article develops an interoperable reference architecture for smart farming platforms. The approach is conceptual and architecture-oriented: it synthesises platform, IoT, farm-management, interoperability, analytics, and governance concerns into a layered architecture that clarifies how heterogeneous agricultural data and services can be connected, interpreted, governed, analysed, and reused. The proposed architecture includes physical sensing and machinery, connectivity and edge computing, data ingestion, APIs and integration, data standardisation and semantic interoperability, storage and governance, analytics and AI, decision-support and visualisation, farm-management workflow, stakeholder interface, security and access control, and monitoring and feedback layers. The contribution is a structured architecture that distinguishes data connectivity, API access, syntactic compatibility, semantic interoperability, governance, analytics integration, and workflow usability. The article argues that interoperable smart farming platforms should not be treated as simple data repositories or dashboards; rather, they require modular, auditable, secure, and context-sensitive integration across technical and organisational boundaries. The architecture supports researchers, platform developers, machinery manufacturers, FMIS providers, advisors, cooperatives, and policymakers in designing more coherent digital agriculture ecosystems.
UR - https://airpublications.com/t603551249
ER -