Greenhouse Automation System is the technical approach in which the farmers in the rural areas will be benefited by automatic monitoring and control of greenhouse environment. It replaces the direct supervision of the human. Greenhouse is a building where plants are grown in a controlled manner. Nowadays due to urbanization and lack of land availability there is a great need to construct the Greenhouses which will be reserved mainly for growing crops. With the advancement of technology, we can control and monitor the multiple Greenhouses using IoT from the central location .
Introduction on Smart Greenhouse Automation:
Greenhouse farming is a technique that enhances the yield of crops, vegetables, fruits etc. Greenhouses control environmental parameters in two ways; either through manual intervention or a proportional control mechanism. However, since manual intervention has disadvantages such as production loss, energy loss, and labor cost, these methods are less effective. A smart greenhouse through IoT embedded systems not only monitors intelligently but also controls the climate. Thereby eliminating any need for human intervention.
Different sensors that measure the environmental parameters according to the plant requirement are used for controlling the environment in a smart greenhouse. Then, a cloud server creates for remotely accessing the system when it connects using IoT.
The Different sensors that are used to measure the environmental parameters to the plant requirement for controlling the environment in smart greenhouse are as follows:
Soil Moisture Sensor: The two copper leads act as the sensor probes. They are immersed into the specimen soil whose moisture content is under test. The conductivity of soil depends upon the amount of moisture present in it. It increases with increase in the water content of the soil that forms a conductive path between two sensor probes leading to a close path to allow current flowing through.
Light Sensor: The light sensor is extremely sensitive in visible light range. With the light sensor attached to the system when the surrounding natural lights are low, it displays the digital values corresponding to the light intensity.
Humidity Sensor: Humidity sensor is used for sensing the vapors in the air. The change in RH (Relative Humidity) of the surroundings would result in display of values.
Advantages of Smart Greenhouse Automation:
Maintaining a controlled temperature within a greenhouse environment is crucial. Temperature fluctuations can damage or kill your plants in only a few hours. Remote monitoring systems protect valuable plants from extreme temperature fluctuations. Watch to learn more about these cost-effective systems.
Keeping plants healthy and prosperous requires the best possible growing environment. But staying on top of all environmental changes and equipment statuses or failures can be a challenge. Watch to learn how you can monitor conditions like humidity fluctuations, security breaches, heater, fan, equipment and power failures.
When your plants are at risk, every second counts. The sooner you discover a drop in temperature or an equipment failure, the more inventory you can save. Remote monitoring systems provide real-time updates, so you can take action fast.
PROPOSED METHODOLOGY:
The block diagram of greenhouse system is as shown in above. The ruggedBOARD is used to obtain values of physical data through sensors connected to it. And then data collected by the sensors are given to the GPRS module.
Flow diagram showing the proposed methodology for Smart Greenhouse Automation is as follows:
Conclusion: The monitoring & controlling system of the Smart Greenhouse Automation precepts different parameters inside the greenhouse using sensors, GSM & IOT to provide the updates. The developed system can be proved profitable as it will optimize the resources in the greenhouse. The complete module is of low cost, low power operation hence, easily available to everyone.