dc.description.abstract |
In recent years, the agricultural industry has witnessed a significant
transformation due to the advent of Internet of Things (IoT) technology. IoT has
revolutionized the agriculture with real-time monitoring and controlling systems.
Though, greenhouse provides a controlled environment for cultivating crops,
maintaining optimal microclimatic conditions inside the greenhouse in real-time is
crucial for maximizing yield and quality of produce. Hence, a study was conducted
to develop a web enabled microcontroller embedded system with sensors and IoT
technology for greenhouse, to monitor and control the various microclimate
parameters in real-time. The study was conducted in a naturally ventilated
polyhouse. The web enabled system consists of microcontroller, temperature &
humidity sensor, light sensor and actuators (exhaust fans and foggers). The
developed system was evaluated with and without crop inside polyhouse.
The developed system was able to monitor and control the microclimate
parameters in real-time, both in manual and automatic mode through IoT platform
anywhere in the world. It was found that, whenever the temperature inside the
polyhouse exceeded 28°C, the controller switched ‘ON’ the exhaust fans and
reduced the temperature and turned ‘OFF’ when the temperature reached below
25°C. It was noticed that the actuator, exhaust fan alone was not able to reduce the
temperature up to the desired level. Hence, fogger was also connected to the system
to maintain temperature as well as relative humidity (RH). It was found that when
the temperature exceeded 35°C, fogger automatically switched ‘ON’ and switched
‘OFF’ when the temperature reached below 32°C. The average temperature, RH
and light intensity during the test period (09/01/2023 to 15/01/2023) without crop
was found 34°C, 64.33% and 32,000 lx respectively, whereas the same during the
crop growing period (20/01/2023 to 21/05/2023) was found to be 37°C, 59.22%
and 35,000 lx respectively. A reduction in temperature of 3°C and increase in RH
of 4% was able to achieve inside the polyhouse throughout the experiment.
Monitoring and controlling was also made possible using a GSM module
where manual and automatic control was achieved using an Android mobile phone.
Besides the continuous real-time data monitoring, it showed past one hour, one day,
seven days and 15 days interval temperature, RH and light data as graphical
insights. The system was able to monitor and control both in manual and automatic
mode using GSM from different locations through SMS.
Temperature, RH and light intensity inside and outside the polyhouse were
compared with and without crop after the installation of IoT based system inside
the polyhouse. Usually, temperature inside the polyhouse is higher and RH is less
compared to outside of polyhouse. After the installation of IoT based automation
system, it was found that there was lower temperature and higher RH inside the
polyhouse than outside. The observations on growth and yield parameters of the
crop were also found satisfactory. Crop yield of 11 t/ha, which is approximate to
the average yield of bhindi for ‘Anjitha’ variety was obtained. |
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