Design and development of a sensor node to monitor and detect change in internal parameters of a cold storage system

India is the largest producer of fruit and second largest producer of vegetables in the world. Due to the diverse agro climatic conditions and better availability of package of practices, the production is gradually rising. Although, there is a vast scope for increasing the production the lack of proper cold storage and cold chain facilities are becoming the major bottlenecks in tapping the potential. So, this can be circumvented through a Wireless sensor network based cold storage system. By this, the network with sensor nodes placed at different locations within the cold storage chamber will suffice. The sensor node should have the ability of monitoring all the required environmental parameters and also process the information for further control. Based on the survey it is alleged that different environmental parameters like temperature, humidity, toxic gases and light intensity are to be monitored in the cold storages for maintaining the quality of the commodities in the storage. The current cold storage scenarios in India do not consider all the parameters that the influence the storage maintenance. Hence, with an intention to attend this, a sensor node with all the required sensors and accessories for processing and communicating is designed, developed and tested. The sensor node so designed is capable of monitoring and processing the environmental parameters. By deploying this node at appropriate places inside the storage system, quality and life time of all commodities placed in storage can be increased radically and thereby increasing the per capita availability of fruits and vegetables.