Automated Hydroponics System to Study Nutrient

Allocation and Plant Responses in a Controlled

2023 International Conference on Intelligent Data Communication Technologies and Internet of Things (IDCIoT) | 978-1-6654-7451-1/23/$31.00 ©2023 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/IDCIoT56793.2023.10053508

Environment
Dr.Sharmila K P Devadathan Menon Dhruv Sharma Ayush Dadsena
ECE Department CSE Department ECE Department ECE Department
CMR Institute of Technology CMR Institute of Technology CMR Institute of Technology CMR Institute of Technology
Bengaluru,India Bengaluru,India Bengaluru,India Bengaluru,India
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Abstract — In nations like India, where agricultural order to secure the availability of low-cost and high-quality crops
production is the largest source of revenue, agriculture is to fulfil the rising food demand. Hydroponics is a subgroup of
troubled by many issues like limited and divided agriculture which can nullify some of the major problems of
farmland/cultivation lands, manures, chemical fertilizer, traditional farming. In this method only nutrient solution is used
pesticides, and seeds etc. Adding on, even the water resources as the medium ,nutrient solution is nothing but mixing the require
fall short, which makes agriculture even more difficult and nutrients along with the water to grow crops , which results in
challenging. But with the increase in the rate of consumers as saving water , high yield and quality of crops , pesticide/disease
well as increase in their health consciousness , leads to the free , zero weed , optimal usage of nutrients , less area and even
demand for quality and quantity of chemical-free agricultural weather independent. In order to make the hydroponic model
products . Hence technology can come into the picture to convenient for urban life, the model should be smart and
resolve these issues. This article proposes a solution to solve automated. This need can be fulfilled by using IoT. IoT is an
the above-mentioned difficulties by using hydroponics along emerging technology. The influence of IoT on the Internet is so
with IoT where hydroponics is a way of cultivating much that surveys say that 8.74 billion linked IoT gadgets will be
agricultural products that end up saving more water as well there by 2025. IoT is widely used because of its simplicity,
as can grow the plants in small areas when compared with liability, low maintenance and installation cost. Hence the
traditional methods of farming. It can be done in any combination of hydroponics and IoT will reduce human
unoccupied space in the house or anywhere, such as a room, intervention and can be monitored anywhere from the world.
lobby, patio, balcony, or any other unused space. So Generally hydroponics with IoT systems collect data using many
hydroponics results in higher yield of crops when controlled different types of sensors to describe rainfall, temperature,
and efficiently monitored, growth of the plants can be humidity, light and many other parameters and update it in IoT
monitored from anywhere in the world using IoT so it is time based platforms (Blynk,ThingSpeak,Ubidots etc.) using the
saving. The hydroponics with IoT model can also be modified internet.
into a vertical fashion. This model allows people to go organic
and eat chemical /pesticide free food. II. RELATED WORKS

Keywords— Hydroponics, IoT, Arduino,Node MCU,Smart

Nikesh Gondchawar et al., [12] submitted the paperwork
Farming, Automated Agriculture, Mist/spray setup, Blynk.
on IoT based smart agriculture and the main aim of the paper is
to include the Iot Technology into agriculture and make it smart
I.INTRODUCTION and automation. This paper tells that Smart robots with gps which
Agriculture plays an important role in mortal can be remotely controlled will do all the work like moisture
civilization. It is crucial for economic growth which accounts for sensing, wedding, spraying etc. It manages and monitors
4% of global gross domestic product (GDP) and in some least- temperature, humidity, field activities, irrigation problems, and
developed countries, it can account for more than 25% of GDP. storage problems and theft detection in the warehouse.
There are many issues like increased population, more
urbanization, less cultivational lands, scarcity of water,
Rajalakshmi P.et.al., [13] detailed to monitor the crop-
inadequate storage facilities etc. Leading to rapidly expanding
field using soil moisture sensors, temperature, humidity sensor,
global food demand, which will be somewhere between 9.1
light sensor and automated the fertilisation system. The data from
billion people by 2050. This will increase a lot of pressure on
sensors sent to the server using wireless transmission is used for
producers all over the world to raise their agricultural output. So
data encoding to maintain the server database. The moisture and
traditional farming cannot not resolve these problems because
temperature of the agriculture field falls below the margin, and
they require a lot of water, area, manpower, excessive wastage of
the fertilisation system will be automated. The trigger messages
nutrients and there is a risk of capital due to variation in market
are sent to the user's phone recurrently and the user can be able to
rates hence improvement of the growing methods is required in
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monitor the field conditions from anywhere in the world. This
system will be even more useful in places where water is scarce. PH SENSOR -

Tanmay Baranwal et al., [14] this paper mainly tells

EC SENSOR -
about the security and protection of crops from attacks of rodents
or insects in the fields or grain stores. It tells about the security
systems which provide notification after sensing the problem to WATER LEVEL SENSORS -
the user. Sensors and electronic devices are combined using
python scripts. There was 85% success achieved from these test TEMPERATURE & -
cases. HUMIDITY
III.PROPOSED SYSTEM SENSORS

This paper talks about automated hydroponics systems RECHARGEABLE BATTERY -

to study nutrient allocation and system responses in a controlled
terrain husbandry, IoT (Internet of Things) and Arduino.
According to this study, the approach is based on the notion of SUBMERSIBLE PUMP -
hydroponics, in which water is utilised to grow crops within the
controlled system. The method of growing plants in sand, clay, AIR STONE -
or liquid with extra nutrients but no soil is known as hydroponics
.The advantages of enforcing hydroponics is that there's lower
mortal intervention, which reduces the labour cost and makes it 2 CHANNEL RELAY -
further cost effective. It is also rainfall independent, which means
crops can be grown in any season. It doesn't have any soil for the
4 CHANNEL RELAY -
growth of crops. It can be controlled anywhere in the world,
hence there's no demand to cover it being in the same place. It
makes better use of space, hence it does not require further space
to apply or grow the crops. Hydroponics is water-saving and
effectively uses the nutrients, hence, will save money. And there Arduino:
will be no waste of nutrients either. Including the pH and EC Arduino is a free platform which is used for developing
control of the nutrient solution will result in a better growth rate electronics projects. It consists of both hardware (often referred
of the plants. No weeds will be grown since it's under controlled as microcontroller) and application software, or IDE (Integrated
terrain and doesn't require any weed control chemicals hence it Development Environment) which runs on the system to write
uses no chemicals for plant growth. Hydroponics is a stress- the code and upload the code to the hardware/physical board.
relieving hobby; hence, it can be done by anyone and anywhere Many various types of Arduino boards are present which include
with low stress, further health benefits, and good quality products Arduino UNO, Red Board, LilyPad Arduino, Arduino Mega,
can be grown. The proposed technique nurtures crops in a Arduino Leonardo. The Arduino Uno is a free microcontroller
controlled environment, ensuring that both quantity and quality board which was developed by Arduino.cc and which is based
are high by implementing substantially fewer natural resources on Microchip ATMEGA328P microcontroller. The board is
and making the product consumer-friendly. equipped with sets of input/output (I/O) pins that may be used
to connect with other boards (shields) / other circuits.

IV.METHODOLOGY

A. Hardware And Software:

TABLE I COMPONENTS REQUIRED

Fig 4.1: Arduino UNO Board

HARDWARE SOFTWARE

NodeMCU
ARDUINO UNO Arduino IDE
NodeMCU is a free low cost open source IoT platform
which uses ESP8266 Wi-Fi SoC from Espressif Systems and
NODE MCU Blynk software hardware which was based on the ESP-12 module that uses the
Wi-Fi protocol to connect objects and allow data transfer. It is
- used to give some microcontroller features like GPIO, PWM,
PH SENSOR MODULE AND
ADC, etc.. The storage of Node MCU is 4M Bytes and memory
PH ELECTRODE PROBE KIT is 128k Bytes.
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 Fig 4.2: NodeMCU

Fig 4.4 EC Sensor Fig 4.5 pH Sensor

Blynk Interface:
Blynk is a new platform that allows you to quickly build
interfaces for controlling and monitoring hardware related
processes from your iOS and Android device. Blynk is an IoT
platform for smartphones that is used to control Arduino,
Raspberry Pi and NodeMCU via the Internet. This application is
used to create a graphical interface by compiling and providing
the appropriate address on the available widgets.

Fig 4.6 Temperature Sensor Fig 4.7 Water Level Sensor

Fig 4.3: Blynk Interface

Sensors:
TABLE II: SENSOR’S DETAILS

Sensor Specification Range to be

maintained
for plant
growth Fig 4.8: Design model

Temperature 18℃-25℃
sensor Measure the Initially the code is loaded into the microcontroller
surrounding (Arduino UNO board). The data from the float sensor,
temperature temperature sensor, pH sensor and EC sensor is fed to the
microcontroller. Then this data in the microcontroller is used to
Level sensor - run the code loaded in the board. Based on the output of the code
Sense the level
of water/solution executed, the signals are sent to motors to turn on /off and then
in the reservoir the data from the sensor and data sent to the motors are sent to
NodeMCU from where the data is updated in Blynk application
where we can see the current status of the motor, levels of pH
EC sensor 0.9-1.5 dbs
Measures the and EC and level of the nutrient solution.
conductivity in
Reservoir

pH sensor 5.5-6.5
Measures the
electron strength
in reservoir

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 . : .

V. PROTOTYPE

F ig 6 .2 :S e m i g r o w n s a p l in g s . F ig 6 .3 : S e m i g r o w n s a p lin g s .

Fig 5.1 Outline of the Prototype

F ig 6 . 4 :F u lly g r o w n re d le ttu c e .

Fig 5.2 Prototype

This is the prototype of the design which was explained

in the above section. The prototype explains the detailed positions
of different sensors, nutrient solution container, pH up and pH Fig 6.4: Fully grown red lettuce
down solution containers, various motors or pumps used,
microcontroller and reservoir.

VI. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Fig 6.5: Output obtained from the Blynk Interface

Fig 6.1: Saplings

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 Case4: When the EC value is below the threshold value (0.9-1.5
for lettuce).
In this case the pH down and pH up solution will not be added
but only the nutrient solution will be added. During this process
the motor status of pH down and pH up is 0 and the motor status
of nutrient solution is 1.

Figure 6.5 shows the pH and EC values at an instance of time

which is equal to the threshold value hence in the figure 6.6 and
6.7 it is observed that the status of all the motors is 0 representing
no solution (pH up, pH down and nutrient solution) is added to
the reservoir.

F ig 6 .6 :O u tp u t o b ta in e d f r o m th e B ly n k I n te r f a c e

F ig 6 .7 : O u tp u t o b ta in e d fr o m th e B ly n k I n te r fa c e

Fig6.8: pH sensor and nutrient solution along with the hardware

Blynk is an IoT interface. The EC’s range is set from 0-10 and
pH’s range is set from 0-14. Motor’s range is either 1 or 0, if 0
the motor is off and if 1 it is powered on. There are 3 motor status
gauges. Slider is used to set the range for pH up, pH down,
nutrient solution and EC. The threshold values are set for the
plants and now the process begins.

Case1: When the pH value goes below the threshold value (5.5
for lettuce).
In this case pH up solution will be added until the pH value of the
reservoir reaches 6 (average value of 5.5 and 6.5)
During this process the motor status of pH up is 1 and the motor
status of pH down and the nutrient solution is 0.

Case2: When the pH value goes above the threshold value (5.5
for lettuce).
In this case pH down solution will be added until the pH value of
the reservoir reaches 6 (average value of 5.5 and 6.5)
. :
During this process the motor status of pH down is 1 and the
motor status of pH up and the nutrient solution is 0. Fig 6.9: Trigger message when the pH up solution level is low

Case3: When the pH value goes is maintained to the threshold

value (5.5 for lettuce)
In this case the pH down and pH up solution will not be added.
During this process the motor status of pH down, pH up and the
nutrient solution is 0.
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 be resolved as soon as possible. The setup is modified to measure
the temperature, if high the mist/spray setup is used to reduce the
temperature levels. So the pH up and down solution, nutrient
solution and temperature levels are kept intact.

VII. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE

Following the description of the hydroponic

environment, a method for controlling and monitoring the
hydroponic setup was described. The system is useful for
agricultural applications due to its properties. Many people
recognise IoT applications and realise the significant impact on
smart living as being one of the primary applications. There is a
speculation that the hydroponic gadget will be linked to a
communication network, allowing people to connect with
hydroponic harvests available on the internet via a mobile app
called Blynk. This model can be upgraded in the future by testing
on different plants, using LoRa technology and machine learning.

Fig 6.10: Trigger message when the nutrient solution level is low
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Fig 6.12: Mist setup to reduce the temperature

Initially the pH and conductivity of the water from the

reservoir is maintained and sent along with the nutrient solution
to the plants, then observed the growth of the healthy plants and
modified the setup to measure the level of pH up and down
solution, nutrient solution and water level in the reservoir. The
user will receive a trigger message if the levels of the pH up and
down solution and the nutrient solution are low so this issue can
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