Automated Smart Hydroponics System Using Internet of Things
Automated Smart Hydroponics System Using Internet of Things
Automated Smart Hydroponics System Using Internet of Things
Corresponding Author:
Raed Abdulla,
School of Engineering,
Asia Pacific University of Technology and Innovation (APU),
Technology Park Malaysia, Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur 57000, Malaysia.
Email: dr.raed@apu.edu.my
1. INTRODUCTION
Agriculture is the cornerstone of human civilization and is responsible for the production of quality
food for the human population [1-4]. To ensure the availability of inexpensive and quality products to meet
the increasing food demand, intensification of the growing practices is necessary. By definition, hydroponics
is subset of hydro culture, the method of growing plants without the use of soil, using mineral nutrient
solutions in a water solvent [5-9]. As defined, plants in hydroponics system are grown without the use of soil.
Plants receive all the essential nutrients from a nutrient rich water-based solution, whereby the water is mixed
with the specified solutions for the plant to be grown. Therefore, there are a variety of hydroponic methods or
technique in which plants can grow in a non-soil medium or directly in the nutrient rich water-based solution.
These operations are controlled systematically and therefore tend to produce higher than traditional farming.
For the past couple of years this method has been implemented and used in urban areas to improve the access
to a fresh food [10, 11]. The Internet of Things is an emerging topic of technical, social, and economic
significance [12]. Consumer products, durable goods, cars and trucks, industrial and utility components,
sensors, and other everyday objects are being combined with Internet connectivity and powerful data analytic
capabilities that promise to transform the way we work, live, and play [13].
Projections for the impact of IOT on the Internet and economy are impressive, with some
anticipating as many as 100 billion connected IOT devices and a global economic impact of more than
$11 trillion by 2025 [14]. Automation has changed the way we work, live and make things. Moreover,
there are a lot of challenges in maintaining automated products, which lies under the high cost and upgrading
those products will mostly cost high prices depending on the product and the manufacturer. Therefore,
IOT which is an emerging technology might solve some of those problems [15]. A few works have reported
a methodology on how to transfer the data from one node to another. A system that transfers the data using
ZigBee from sensor node has been proposed by [16-22], thus a raspberry pi connected with ZigBee module
receives the data from the sensor node and passes it to the PC node whereby data is received and processed.
Another researcher proposed a much better system, [23] that uses four type of sensors to detect rainfall,
temperature, moisture and light then sends to Thingspeak which is a paid cloud that receives data via MQTT
protocol. Commonly most of the researchers have proposed systems that utilizes ZigBee as communication
medium and without any cloud infrastructure to analyze and process data and control actuators in real
time [24]. Researchers implemented hydroponics using electronic circuit, nutrients and water to be
automatically monitored which led to higher productivity. Implemented pest detection and to connect Wi-Fi
module in order to automate the system to be more flexible and yielded to save water and fertilizers [25-31].
There many reasons that push us to go for hydroponics, starting with the global food demand which
is increasing rapidly and expected to be anywhere between 59% to 98% by 2050. This will shape agriculture
market a put a lot of pressure in ways we have never seen before, whereby farmers worldwide will have to
increase their crop production, either by enhancing and improving the productivity of the existing agriculture
land by fertilizing and irrigation or by increasing the amount of agricultural land. Secondly, water
conservation which an increasing concern in the society. If we look at the average soil gardener usually every
few days, they use a good amount of water into their soil, ensuring good penetration into the soil so
the plants roots can make the most out of it. Thirdly less pets and diseases and higher productivity which
means healthier than the traditional farming.
The proposed system here is an automated smart hydroponics system, whereby this system will be
able to add and implement Internet of Things concept and functionality to the current existing hydroponics
system. Moreover, with the use of Internet of things the system can be monitored and controlled from
anywhere via the internet, therefore parameters such as water, pH level, room temperature, nutrient rich
water-based solution temperature and room humidity parameters can be viewed in real time. One of the key
features of this system is the ability to make decision and send command from a friendly user interface based
on the shown real time parameters.
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the cost of the system, a free IOT server has been deployed called NodeRed. According to NodeRed Org,
(2016) NodeRed is a visual tool for wiring the Internet of Things. Node-Red is a tool for wiring together
hardware devices, APIs and online services in new and interesting ways. Hence after deploying the NodeRed
server, authenticating is done to secure the access to the server and password is encrypted to ensure
the maximum amount of security. Moreover, the second stage servers will require hosting to provide
accessibility from anywhere around the world therefore a hosting is required. For this system a dynamic
domain name will be used to reroute the traffics to selected domain name from the raspberry pi host.
3. SYSTEM IMPEMENTATION
3.1. Overall block diagram
The overall block diagram shows the main parts and components of the system and the way of
communications between the sensors, relays, PCB, Node-Red, GUI, and the mobile application. The overall
block diagram shown in Figure 2 shows the main parts of the system and the communication medium
between the software and the hardware components. The system works based on the data acquired by
the sensors or based on the commands given by the user. There are 4 sensors which are water, temperature
sensor, pH level sensor, and the room humidity and temperature sensor. These sensors are connected to
the PCB where the data acquired by the sensors will be transferred through the internet via the MQTT
broker and then to the Node-red where the data will be analyzed and based on that the action will be
taken automatically.
The GUI and the mobile app of the system shows the system status and all the related data acquired
by the sensors where the user can take action and send commands based on that or based on what is needed.
Software used in this project to design and construct the system before implementation is explained further.
Starting with PCB, Design Spark software has been used to design the two layers PCB design after initial
hand sketch. Figure 3 shows the power layer, whereby only node connections are directly linked with
MIC29302WU1543P that solves the power and manage it accordingly between the microcontrollers, relays,
analogue and digital nodes. Figure 4 illustrates the digital, analogue, I2C and PWM wiring between
the microcontroller NodeMcu Esp8266 and the end nodes.
Figure 3. Power layer design for the PCB Figure 4. Analogue & digital layer design for the PCB
Moreover, ultrasonic sensors with a NodeMcu Esp8266 are designed separately due to
the functionality of that node. An Ultrasonic sensor is a device that can measure the distance to an object by
using sound waves. It measures distance by sending out a sound wave at a specific frequency and listening
for that sound wave to bounce back from the object or obstacle by using mathematical formula.
The NodeMcu provide only 3.3V therefore an alternative solution has been developed. By default,
the NodeMcu input voltage is 5V and gets the input in two ways, either via a USB or Vin pin. Assuming
a Y shape whereby the input voltage is expected to come from the USB port, hence it’s expected to have 5V
in the Vin pin which is used in the circuit as shown in Figure 5.
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Additionally, the overall structure of the proposed automated smart hydroponics system has been
sketched and drawn with Solid Work before building the structure or the prototype. Figure 6 illustrates
the 3D model presented from different views. Starting with the top view with the actual length and width of
the pipes and lights. Moreover, enclosure box has been added for the PCB for many reasons, mainly to avoid
any short circuit for the PCB that leads to failure and burn the entire circuit. In addition to safety of the users,
the Omron relay is designed to control 220V horticultural light used in the hydroponics system to give
the plant what they need from the sun. As the incoming 220V enters the circuit there is a higher risk of
electrical shock to the end user that can lead to a disastrous outcome, thus the enclosure was needed.
As shown in Figure 7 the Solid Work 3D design for the box, with the use of 3D printer, the design was saved
in. STL format and sliced with cura-engine which converts the 3D design into printing structures for
the 3D printer.
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By definition the internet of things is the ability to monitor and visualize data in real time and at
the same time being able to send back data and control parameters over a network. To achieve that process
an MQTT which stands for MQ Telemetry Transport is designed for low bandwidth high latency networks,
a lightweight messaging protocol to publish and subscribe for topics. Moving on with cloud server
a NodeRed server is a programming tool for wiring together hardware devices, APIs and online services in
new and simplified ways. The cloud server section will be divided into two major part monitoring and
controlling, monitoring will be done via a graphical user interface developed and configured from
the NodeRed itself to display data like room temperature and humidity, water temperature and pH level and
the status of the horticultural whether it’s on or off in real time. For the controlling part of the platform
API’s like telegram and Nexmo for SMS are used to control and notify the end user or the owner for
the status or any sort notification related to the system. The GUI buttons are used to control the horticultural
light by turning it on or off via sending it to the appropriate MQTT server. Last but not least, after changes
or modifications, the monitoring data updates it and notification are sent as an output to the system via
notification to the telegram bot and SMS in case the end user isn’t connected to the internet on his/her
phone. Moreover, an email will be sent to the supplier before two-week time as a notification to bring
the supply and a notification goes to the end user to get ready for the payment within two- week time too.
Figure 9. Smart hydroponics system used Figure 10. Smart hydroponics system supplier
to grow a lettuce and owner notification
Automated smart hydroponics system using internet of things (Ravi Lakshmanan)
6396 ISSN: 2088-8708
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Int J Elec & Comp Eng ISSN: 2088-8708 6397
5. CONCLUSION
The proposed system in this paper is an automated smart hydroponics system, whereby this system
will be able to add and implement Internet of Things concept and functionality to the current existing
hydroponics system. A GUI that allows the user to control and monitor real time data has been successfully
achieved by developing a user interface node for the NodeRed and linked with the real-time sensor data.
Moreover, it is hosted on the cloud at Nodered.MohamedDjama.com to make accessible from everywhere.
Nginx server was used to forward traffics from port 1880 to 80 which HTTP but to add more security an SSL
certificate has been issued and added therefore traffics are redirected to 443 which is HTTPS. Internet of
things concept is implemented to the system to ease the process of growing food hydroponically by easing
the process of growing and monitoring via secure cloud. By adding the internet of things, it solves one
the key challenges in automation today which is maintenance, by providing a platform for monitoring
the entire system from cloud, thus reducing the cost of maintenance by fraction. Lastly, the performance of
the smart hydroponic system is evaluated. The automated smart hydroponics system is designed for indoor
usage, for a bigger scale using Wi-Fi isn’t the ideal wireless network, and the system is a success and
implemented successfully. However, future work that can be done for further improvement will be by
Integrating Data Analytics to the system or machine learning to develop algorithms to predict outcomes,
add more sensors to get more accurate data and help the Artificial Intelligence system to predict
the outcome better and by using intel C1000 microprocessor which comes built in with image processing for
the crops health.
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