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Real-Time Soil Monitoring System for the Application of Agriculture

Research · January 2016

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DOI 10.4010/2016.1304
ISSN 2321 3361 © 2016 IJESC

Research Article Volume 6 Issue No. 5

Real-Time Soil Monitoring System for the Application of

Agriculture
Balakrishna.K1, Nethravathi.S.N2, Harshitha Krishna3
Research Scholar1, Student2, 3
Department of ECE
Maharaja Research Foundation, Mysore, India

Abstract:
This paper describes a real-time soil monitoring for the agriculture farmlands to provide optimal and integrated data collections.
Real- time monitoring provides reliable, timely information of crop and soil status plays an important role in the decision making
in the crop production improvement. Agriculture depends on many parameters as inter and intra variability’s of plants to give
better yields such as soil parameters, climatic parameters so on. Here the system is designed to collect the data set for major
parameters such as temperature, humidity, soil pH, soil moisture, light intensity and carbon-dioxide of the fields. The system
consists of an ATmega 328 microcontroller, DHT11 Sensor, soil hygrometer, light intensity sensor, soil pH sensor, MQ-135
sensor and DC motor. Data sets collected were used for the analysis of selection of crops and their vulnerabilities for regulating
the irrigation parameters which will be of help in the agricultural practices, it will make easy way for farmers to take decision on
planting a crops, watering and fertilizing them by avoiding the interference of hydro geologists and soil scientists by giving
precaution. The obtained results were compared with the standardized optimum values for the particular crops and based on the
differences inputs for the crops are varied. The automated watering helps the crops to get flow of water to fields based on the
parameters, which is controlled by the DC motor. Multi sensor implementation for acquiring primary parameters essential for
plant growth is the main aim of the paper. Easily available sensors were a motivation for the development of this project.

Keywords: ATmega328 microcontroller, DHT11 sensor, soil hygrometer, light intensity sensor, soil PH sensor, MQ-135 sensor
and DC motor

Introduction Agricultural fields have taken shelter under the umbrella of

Agriculture is the backbone of the Indian economy and these new age technologies. Real time monitoring systems
around 70% of the population depends on this field to run have the advantage of being fast and time saving in the
their livelihood. From time immemorial agriculture has been present context. Moreover making it user friendly allows the
a part of the human civilization. It has transformed the way agriculturist act swiftly and takes preventive measures.
humans survive. The economy of a particular area was Designing Real time monitoring systems are a challenging
indirectly dependent on agriculture, and was a major thrust task as it is not always possible to cover the entire domain
behind the industrial revolution. Advancements in the field of growth parameters owing to the dearth of sensor
of science and technology led to increased yield. Applying technologies, new emerging technologies like Ion selective
electronic monitoring systems is one of the technologies for field effect transistor (ISFET), Internet of things (IoT), 5G,
analyzing important conditions required for optimum GSM, Wi-Fi, mechanized harvesting, Robotic assistance are
growth of plants. The conditions can be listed as recent trends in the field of analysis of data.
temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, and soil moisture There are many advantages in developing microcontroller
and soil pH. There are valuable data that could decide the based circuits and incorporating new sensor technologies
plant life cycle. Efficient use of these parameters increases into agricultural applications. Microcontrollers and solid-
the output per plant and minimizes crop loss [1]. state sensors can be found in many commercial, industrial,
The quantum of steps taken to monitor never ends here, and consumer applications. Many sensors and auxiliary
more data collection in turn increases the accuracy and by components (memory chips clocks, etc.) are designed to
leaving no stones unturned efficiency of harvest and output interface directly with microcontrollers, simplifying circuit
increases. Agricultural stations have developed novel design and modification.
methods for monitoring the data, and programs to help the A variety of programming languages are available, allowing
farmer generate more output. Integrating various sensors the programmer to access sophisticated and complex
that are rugged and capable of generating the hard data in features and create applications without having to learn each
real time can augment further analysis. microcontroller’s native assembly language. Components
Currently geographical land use patterns, soil parameters are are very inexpensive, and can be obtained in most parts of
determined using satellites, and non invasive techniques that the world via a number of suppliers.
are sophisticated and generate precise data in real time.

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Temperature and humidity are very important Karthik Krishnamurthi et al [6] proposed about Weather is
environmental elements that must be controlled for healthy the state of the atmosphere, to the degree that it is hot or
plants. Humidity controls the rate of transpiration and how cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. Most
the nutrients are received by the plants. Ideal humidity weather phenomena occur in the troposphere, just below the
levels in a grow room range between 50% to 70% in stratosphere. Weather generally refers to day-to-day
vegetative growth, and 50% to 60%for flowering plants [2]. temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate is
Plants grow well only within a limited temperature range. the term for the average atmospheric conditions over longer
Temperatures that are too high or too low will result in periods of time. When used without qualification,
abnormal development and reduce production. Warm- “weather”, is understood to mean the weather of earth.
season vegetable and most flower s grow between 60ᵒ and Monitoring the weather conditions manually is difficult.
75ᵒ or 80ᵒF. Cool-season vegetables such as lettuce and The present work is to develop an automated system which
spinach should be grown between 50ᵒ and 70ᵒF. monitors the weather condition. The weather condition is
Soil moisture is one of the most important parameter driven by air pressure (temperature and moisture)
influencing crop yields [3]. It plays a crucial role for differences between one place and another. These pressure
efficient photosynthesis, respiration, transpiration and and temperature differences can occur due to the sun angle
transportation of minerals and other nutrients through the at any particular spot. Through this system we can
plant. Proper irrigation schedule is very critical to plant automatically collect the information about humidity and
growth. If the moisture content of a soil is optimum for temperature. The details are stored in a database and
plant growth, plants can readily absorb soil water. Soil water according to current and previous data we can produce the
dissolves salts and makes up the soil solution, which is results in graphical manner in the system. The objective of
important as medium for supply of nutrients to growing this paper is to formulate the weather and be able to forecast
plants. the weather without human error.
The pH of the soil solution is very important because the Gaganpreet Kaur Marwah et al [8] proposed about PH
soil solution carries with it nutrients such as Nitrogen (N), sensor interface with PIC microcontroller to create a sensing
Potassium (K) and Phosphorous (P) that plants need in module with 100% stability, to create a sensing module that
specific amounts to grow, thrive and fight off diseases. If will accurately calibrate the pH sensor, to creating a module
the level of pH of soil more than 5.5, it raises the nitrogen that can accurately read the pH of a nutrient enriched
content in it [4]. When soil pH is between 6.0 and 7.0 then solution, to have the ability to add up to 100 nodes within a
phosphorous is also available to the plants. Certain bacteria soil-less agriculture system, and to have the ability to add
convert atmospheric nitrogen into a form that can be used and subtract modules with ease.
by plants for its growth. Plants cannot utilize N, P, K and The goal of interfacing the pH sensor with the PIC was
other nutrients, if soil solution is too acidic. In acidic soils, successful. The system was not able to be tested for stability
plants are more likely to take up toxic metals and some because of the trouble with programming the PIC. Accurate
plants eventually die of toxicity. calibration of the pH sensor was also unsuccessful due to
Light intensity or light quality refers to the total amount of the programming issues. The module was not able to
light that plants receive. It also described as the degree of accurately measure the pH of the nutrient enriched solution
brightness that a plant is exposed to. The intensity of light is without a working program as well. However the ability to
usually measured by the units lux(lx) and footcandle(fc). add up to 100 modules as well as the ability to add and
The carbon dioxide (CO2) is an essential component of subtract modules with ease was successful. This is due to
photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is a chemical process that the small size of the module.
uses light energy to convert CO2 and water into sugar in
green plants. At a fundamental level, carbon dioxide is the Proposed work
basis of nearly all life on Earth, as it is the primary raw The proposed system is capable of determining Soil
material or “food” that is utilized by plants to produce the moisture, temperature, humidity, pH, light intensity and
organic matter out of which they construct their tissues. carbon dioxide of a particular area. The system is to design
an integrated circuit to automatically measure the soil
Related work moisture, environmental temperature and humidity, light
Pulkit Hanswal et al [5] proposed about soil moisture sensor intensity, soil PH, carbon dioxide level for photosynthesis.
based automated irrigation system. This project aims to The motor is fixed for the automatic water pumping if the
provide a user friendly, reliable and automated water water level in the soil decreases below the threshold level.
pumping system which sorts out the problem of over By collecting or measuring these parameters one can also
irrigation and helps in irrigation water optimization and select the suitable crop to grown in the particular region or
management. Our project not only tries to modernize the in the particular soil by manually.
irrigation practices and ensure the optimum yield by Heart of the system is ATmega328 microcontroller from
carefully tailoring the requirements of each field or crop Atmel. It is an easily available chip and Boasts of high
specifically, but also ensures that water is not unnecessarily performance at low power consumption, 1Kb of EEPROM,
wasted. The same system can be used for different crops 2Kb of RAM, 6 channel of 10 bit analog to digital
having different thresholds by setting of the potentiometer. converters, and 14 digital pins which are sufficient to

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interface maximum of 18 sensors. The ease of availability of
sensors and its low cost was a prime advantage in this
endeavor.
Various parameters were obtained over a period of 6 days
and data was displayed on the LCD. Soil sample was typical
Red soil which is widely available in the area. Readings for
the month of April showed temperature in the range of 30-
32°C in the evening and 27-29°C in the morning. Humidity
was around 30-31% in the evening and 28-30% in the
morning. The pH value for the soil sample was around 6.
Light intensity was around the range of 250-280. Carbon
dioxide was around ~300ppm.
Entire system was assembled on a wooden board with 2
power supplies. One of them served as the primary supply
for all the sensors, display and microcontroller unit. The
secondary supply was for pH sensor that used Op-amp
IC741 at its heart.
System performance was optimum and performed as
expected. The values may differ from expected values as it
is not calibrated to the standards recommended by the
established institutions and rule books. Calibrating the Fig. 1 Block diagram of the soil monitoring system.
equipment for error removal is necessary as hard data is
expected for this exercise. MQ-135 gas sensor applies SnO2 which has a lower
pH sensor must be further scrutinized for accurate results conductivity in the clear air as a gas-sensing material. In an
and its impurities play role in the rift of values. By adjusting atmosphere where there may be polluting gas, the
the sensitivity and gain potentiometer we can eliminate conductivity of the gas sensor raises along with the
some of these. concentration of the polluting gas increases. MQ-135
performs a good detection to smoke and other harmful gas,
The fig.1 represents the basic block diagram of Real Time especially sensitive to ammonia, sulfide and benzene steam.
Soil Monitoring System with its relevant hardware Its ability to detect various harmful gas and lower cost make
interfaced with a microcontroller. The heart of the block MQ-135 an ideal choice of different applications of gas
diagram is microcontroller. In this project we used the detection.
ATMEGA328 microcontroller belongs to the family of Hydrogen ion concentration of any solution can be measure
mega AVR series [9]. It requires 5V for its operation from by its pH value. The range of pH varies from 0 to 14, if any
the main power supply. The 5V power supply given to the solution having pH value close to 0 it treated as a highly
all the sensors, LCD display and microcontroller except PH acidic, where as its value close to 14 it consider as a highly
sensor. The PH sensor and the DC motor require dual power alkaline. A special selective hydrogen ion electrode (pH
supply of +12V and -12V. rods) is also immersed in the solution for electrically
measurement of the pH value. This electrode gives an
Here the DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor is used to output voltage that changes its value according to the
measure atmospheric temperature and humidity. This sensor concentration ratio of Hydrogen ions inside the electrode as
includes a resistive-type humidity measurement component comparison to those which are outside the electrode [13].
and an NTC temperature measurement component, and The output of the reference electrode does not depend on the
connects to a high-performance 8-bit microcontroller,
concentration of ion ratio. After measuring the voltage
offering excellent quality, fast response, anti-interference between these 2 electrodes i.e. between reference and a
ability and cost-effectiveness. special electrode, the pH of the solution can be determined.
The data obtained from all these sensors is fed to the
Soil hygrometer sensor is used to measure the volumetric microcontroller; the microcontroller converts analog data
water content indirectly by using some other property of soil into digital by using A/D convertor and then sends the
such as electrical resistance, dielectric constant or values to the 16x2 LCD display for displaying of the sensed
interaction with neurons as a proxy for the moisture content values.
[10]. Measuring soil moisture is important for agricultural This project implements a DC motor to simulate the
application to help formers to manage their irrigation system working of a water pump. If the soil moisture content is
more efficiently, knowing the exact soil moisture conditions below a specified value the motor turns on to indicate that
on their fields [11-12]. Light intensity sensor is used to the water is pumped on to a particular patch of land [14-15].
measure the intensity of light, which converts light energy
in to electrical energy.

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Flow chart From the analysis of the obtained data sets with the
Flow chart shows the working process of the designed standardized data sets for different crops, finally one can
module for collecting the data sets of Soil moisture, conclude that,
temperature, humidity, pH, light intensity and carbon Tomato can be grown on only 15 and 16 of May. Cabbage
dioxide by LCD display. Watering to the fields based on the can be grown on only 7, 8, 15 and 16 of May. Pumpkin can
set threshold value by DC motor. be grown on all days except the 12 April.
Carrot cannot be grown on this field due the inflation in the
pH value. The pH value has to be decreased to grow carrot
in that field.
Okra cannot be grown on this field due the deficiency in the
pH value. The pH value has to be increased to grow carrot
in that field.
The watering will initiated based on the threshold set for
different crops by the DC motor, once the threshold crossed
automatically get stopped.

Fig 2: Hardware setup of Real time soil monitoring

system

LCD display for the designed parameters

Results
Standardized values for selected crops and parameters are
given here

Table 1: Standardized values

crops mois1 temp2 hum3 pH4 LI5
Tomato 70-95 18-28 50-95 6-7 150-270
Cabbage 40-80 15-30 30-85 6.5-7 120-240
Carrot 75-85 18-26 40-90 4.5-6 130-250
Pumpkin 50-75 21-32 35-80 6-6.5 100-250
Okra 55-75 21-30 45-80 6.5-7 110-240
a) Temperature and Humidity
Table 2: Results obtained for 6 days
Dates mois1 temp2 hum3 pH4 LI5 CO26
11/4/16 48 32-38 42 6.2 257 77
12/4/16 35 31-39 32 6.2 262 76
07/5/16 60 28-31 59 6.2 243 82
08/5/16 60 26-30 62 6.2 237 80
15/5/16 75 24-28 68 6.2 229 71
16/5/16 74 24-27 69 6.2 228 72
1 2
mois = Soil moisture temp = temperature
3 4
hum = humidity in % pH = Soil pH
5 6
LI = Light Intensity CO2 = Carbon di-oxide

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b) Light intensity Acknowledgement
We take this opportunity to express gratitude to HOD and
all of the department faculty members for their help and
support. Also thanks to parents for the unceasing
encouragement, support and attention. And also grateful to
my friends who supported throughout this project.

References
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