Plant Health Monitoring System
A monitoring system to determine the optimum environmental parameters for plants.
Problem Statement
The aim was to develop a model which could monitor the health of the plants by using the Internet of Things (IoT). The health of the plant is measured by monitoring the following environmental parameters:
Soil Moisture
Temperature
Humidity
Overview
The project describes a low-cost Arduino Uno-based experimental model which is a highly efficient module for calculating environmental parameters for plant health monitoring.
The parameter values are analyzed with the normal condition values.
The status of plant health is visually displayed by the LEDs and the serial monitor of the Arduino IDE i.e. Arduino Sketch.
The Process
How did we reach here?
The problem was comprehended by devising a low-cost IoT system programmed with embedded C. The workflow was designed to process the sensors' data for monitoring environmental factors like moisture and temperature.
System architecture
The architecture of the model is divided into three modules. They are as follows:
- Sensing Unit: Composed of two sensors, temperature and humidity, and soil moisture sensors. They collect the environmental readings and pass them on to the processing unit.
- Processing Unit: Composed of an Arduino Uno board which processes the readings and compares them with the normal threshold values through embedded C.
- Display Unit: Composed of a serial monitor along with LEDs to indicate the status of plants quantitatively. Green LED blinks for normal plant health and red for abnormal readings.
Working principle
The given activity diagram displays the flow of the working system from fetching the sensor values to displaying it as visual information. The monitoring helps the plant owners take proper care of their plants.
Images of the working model
Hardware
Which components did we use?
Soil Moisture (YL-38 + YL-69)
To measure the soil's humidity, a hygrometer or soil moisture sensor is often employed. Therefore, it is ideal to create an automated irrigation system or to keep track of your plants' soil moisture. The electrical board and the probe with two pads, which detect the presence of water, are the two elements that make up the sensor. According to the amount of water in the soil, the sensor's voltage fluctuates.
Temperature and Humidity (LM35)
A temperature sensor called the LM35 produces an analog signal that is proportional to the current temperature. It is simple to interpret the output voltage to get a temperature reading in Celsius. Lm35 has the benefit of not requiring any external calibration over the thermistor. Additionally, the covering prevents it from overheating. If the device is operated at the ideal temperature and humidity settings, the accuracy level is quite high.
Microcontroller
The open-source Arduino platform is used to create electrical projects. With Arduino, users can write and upload computer code to a physical programmable circuit board (commonly called a microcontroller) using a piece of software called the IDE (Integrated Development Environment), which runs on a computer. Because the Arduino IDE employs a condensed form of C++, learning to program is made simpler.
Future work
What is the future scope of the project?
In the future, we plan to enhance our model with more functionalities. These will include the following:
- The system can be integrated with a mobile application to automate the process of monitoring the plants health through mechanisms of notifications and regulation.
- Next, we plan to store the values of the sensors with date and time. For this, there is a need for creating a database. This can be used to monitor the health of plants on a large scale.
- The system can be integrated with a mobile application to automate the process of monitoring the plants health through mechanisms of notifications and regulation.
Conclusion
How did it go?
Present environmental conditions will be indicated by two LEDs: Red and Green according to which suitable and optimum conditions can be known in advance. Red LED indicates the lack of soil moisture, humidity, and temperature whereas the green LED is the indication of normal conditions.
