M K Anushree, R Krishna; International Journal of Advance Research, Ideas and Innovations in Technology

ISSN: 2454-132X
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(Volume 4, Issue 4)
Available online at: www.ijariit.com
A smart farming system using Arduino based technology
Anushree M K Krishna R
anuhima6@gmail.com krishnar129@yahoo.com
Bangalore Institute of Technology, Bengaluru, Karnataka Bangalore Institute of Technology, Bengaluru, Karnataka

ABSTRACT
"Internet of Things" (IoT) is a technology that permits things to communicate and connect with each other. This is helpful in
changing the patterns and processes in both industry and agriculture towards higher efficiency. A system is proposed which
describes the smart farming in order to improve the production process in planting. Smart farming consists of two main parts
which are a sensor system and a control system. Sensor system consists of a set of tools to obtain the sensed values. Control
system involves a blower, watering and roofing system operated on a human interface. Two Arduino boards are programmed
for sensing and the controlling system. Programming for controlling the system is done in python. The sensed values from the
different sensor are viewed on an LCD display as well as a serial monitor. Results are maintained as a database in excel sheet
and the graphical representation of the same is obtained. Looking on to results obtained from the sensor system, the control
system is activated using the python controlling console. An increase in product quality and quantity is achieved by following
the proper decision-making process.

Keywords— Smart farming, Internet of things

1. INTRODUCTION
Agriculture is one of the important businesses that mainly affects the mankind. From the ancient to the agricultural revolution in
Great Britain England, farming is the way that human used to harvest plants and consumed them in their daily life. Farming has
been improved by many technologies supporting cropping system. In addition to the technologies in the agricultural revolution
era, there have been many technologies that have impacts on agriculture such as harvest machine, seed drill machine, reaper
machine, and the others that can reduce manpower and waste time. Recently, there are few research works on smart farming. A
wireless sensor network is used in potato fields in Egypt. The proposed system was used to monitor the potato fields such as
looking for diseases and harmful fungi and record useful information for improving future planting and managing resources such
as water and soil. To increase the crop yield, the smart farming technology would help. In this work, a smart farming system is
proposed. Smart farming is the technology that uses the concepts of IoT to help farmers to monitor and sense useful information
from their farms in order to help in the quality improvement and product quantity.

2. BACKGROUND
Several works have been carried out which aimed at making agriculture smart by including automation and IoT technologies. A
smart GPS based remote controlled robot was programmed in order to perform the actions like weeding, spraying etc. It covered
smart irrigation along with smart control. Another work included intelligent decision making based on accurate real-time field
data and also smart warehouse management. Temperature and humidity monitoring along with warehouse safety by theft
detection were included. A smart device controlled all the actions. Another work included the use of a Wireless Sensor Network.
The network performed three activities like acquisition, collection, and analysis of the data. The temperature of the environment
and soil moisture level was the area of interest. Benefits of irrigation process in agriculture are decreasing water consumption and
good water management.

3. PROPOSED SYSTEM
Our proposed Smart Farming system consists of two main parts. The first one is a sensor system, which includes temperature and
humidity sensor, a soil moisture sensor, rain sensor, water level sensor and light intensity sensor. The second part covers the
control system. Our control system includes a blower, watering system and roofing system. The system provides the sensed data
from all the sensors so as to help the farmer to make a proper decision about controlling the system. Along with the sensor output,
we make use of a weather forecast repository from an open weather map to obtain the real-time weather forecast. Weather report
obtained from the open weather map is compared with the results obtained from the sensor system and a proper decision making
action is carried out. Two Arduino boards are programmed for sensing and controlling the system. Results obtained from the
sensing subsystem are tabulated in an excel sheet and a proper decision is taken to control the system. Watering subsystem and a
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 M K Anushree, R Krishna; International Journal of Advance Research, Ideas and Innovations in Technology
blower are controlled using a dc motor. Roofing subsystem is controlled by a servo motor. Programming is done with Python GUI
for the control part. In order to maintain the proper humidity, we use the blower. Increase in the temperature leads to hot air
presence, which is cooled down by blowing cool air by the blower. Increased temperature and sunlight intensity can be overcome
by operating the roofing system to provide shelter for the crop. Roofing system also provides an aid in the presence of rain. Water
level sensor indicates the amount of water in the reservoir which is used as a source for the watering subsystem. Looking on to the
output value of the soil moisture sensor, the watering subsystem is turned on and off in order to maintain the proper moisture
content of the soil.

3.1 Hardware design for a proposed system

Figure 1 shows the block diagram of the proposed Smart Farming system. In smart farming, the sensor subsystem is a set of tools
and all the sensors are connected to a microcontroller board called the Arduino board. Sensors are used to measure the essential
values of the planting process including temperature, humidity, soil moisture and light intensity. The sensed values are then
maintained as a database in excel sheet. On another part, the control subsystem is a set of devices used to control the roofing
subsystem, blower and watering subsystem.

Fig. 1: Hardware design for a proposed system

3.2 Components Requirement
3.2.1 LCD display
A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display that uses the light modulating properties of liquid crystals. Liquid crystals
do not emit light directly, instead, it uses a backlight or reflector to produce images in color or monochrome. LCDs are available
to display arbitrary images or fixed images with low information content. The information content can be displayed or hidden,
such as preset words, digits, and 7-segment displays, as seen in a digital clock. They use the same basic technology, except that
the arbitrary images here are made up of a large number of small pixels, while the other displays will have larger elements. LCDs
are used in a wide variety of applications including computer monitors, televisions, the instrument panels, aircraft cockpit
displays and many more. Small LCD screens are seen commonly in portable consumer devices such as digital cameras, digital
watches, calculators, smartphones and many more. LCD screens also find their presence on consumer electronics products such
as DVD players, video game devices, and clocks. LCD screens have taken over heavy, bulky cathode ray tube (CRT) displays in
almost all the applications. LCD screens are found available in a wide range of screen sizes when compared to CRT displays.

Fig. 2: Front and Rear view of 16X2 LCD display

3.2.2 DHT11 sensor
DHT11- Digital Humidity and Temperature sensor is a temperature sensor as well as a humidity sensor. It constitutes two
different parts which are the capacitive humidity sensor and a thermistor. DHT11 is termed as a slow sensor but it is recognized
to be quite efficient for the applications where there is the necessity of some basic analog data exchange. A small chip is found
inside this sensor which is designed to perform the function of analog to digital to analog conversion. This provides the results
for temperature as well as for humidity in digital form. The obtained digital signal can be easily read through any micro-
controller. This temperature and humidity sensor is a low-cost sensor. It is found easily in the market due to which it has become
more popular among the similar type of sensors. It provides precise results with the higher efficiency. It is small in size and
consumes low power. It has the capability of transmitting the signal for up to 20 meters. DHT11 constitutes a lot of features
which includes low cost, long-term stability, fast response time, excellent quality, signal transmission for a long distance and
many more. For real-time applications, this sensor can be used at various places like home appliances, weather stations,
consumer goods and many more.

Fig. 3: DHT11 sensor

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 M K Anushree, R Krishna; International Journal of Advance Research, Ideas and Innovations in Technology
3.2.3 Soil moisture sensor
Soil Moisture sensor is meant to measure the volumetric content of water inside the soil and serves us with the moisture level at
the output. The sensor can be used in both analog and digital mode since it is equipped with both analog and digital output. The
soil moisture sensor is made up of two probes. These probes are used in measuring the volumetric content of water. Current is
allowed to pass through the soil with the help of the probes and then the obtained resistance value is used to measure the moisture
value. In the presence of more water, the soil will conduct more electricity which indicates the presence of less resistance. Hence,
the moisture level will be of higher value. On the other hand, dry soil conducts electricity poorly. Therefore, when there is the
presence of less water, the electrical conductivity will be quite low which indicates the presence of more resistance. Therefore,
the moisture level will be of lower value.

Fig. 4: Pinout a diagram of soil moisture sensor

3.2.4 Rain sensor

Rain sensors are mainly used for the detection of the presence of water beyond what a humidity sensor can detect. The rain
sensor detects the water that falls on the sensor board and completes the circuits on the boards' printed leads. The sensor board
acts as a variable resistor whose values will change from 100k ohms to 2M ohms. For the values nearing to 100k ohms, it
indicates the wetness and for values nearing to 2M ohms, it indicates the dryness. In short, we can conclude that the wetter the
board the more current it will conduct.

Fig. 5: Rain sensor

3.2.5 Light intensity sensor

A Light Sensor generates an output signal that indicates the intensity of light by measuring the radiant energy. It exists in a very
narrow range of frequencies basically called “light”. It ranges in frequency from “Infra-red” to “Visible” up to “Ultraviolet” light
spectrum. Light Dependent Resistor (LDR) is made from a piece of exposed semiconductor material such as cadmium sulphide.
It changes its electrical resistance from several thousand Ohms in the absence of light to only a few hundred Ohms in the
presence of light. Hole-electron pair will be created in the material when light falls on it.

Fig.6: Typical LDR

3.2.6 Water level sensor

The water level sensor is used for measuring water level in the water tank irrespective of the shape of the tank size and shape, the
shape could be cylindrical well, rectangular tank, large/medium size water container. In this project for prototype demo purpose
we used a larger cylindrical bottle size water container with attached four level of resistance conductive PCB that is attached with
a potentiometric voltage leveler, it takes the resistive reading from the dipped PCB which is in the water tank and maps the
resistive reading into 0-5 voltage range. The mapper voltage then can be given to one of the ADC pins of the Arduino
microcontroller for analog voltage to digital bit conversion. The ADC pins of Arduino microcontroller convert the voltage range
of 0 to 5 volt into the 0 to 1023 (10 bits) digital integer form which is easily interpretable to a human-readable form.
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 M K Anushree, R Krishna; International Journal of Advance Research, Ideas and Innovations in Technology

Fig. 7: Water level sensor with the container for the demo

3.2.7 Servomotor
A servomotor works on PWM input signal that has 0 to 180-degree movement angle and has the high torque to produce 1 to 1.5
Kg of force with the intake power rated at 5 volts and 1 ampere. The high torque notch attached with an arm/horn that pulls the
thread attached to roofer to swing the cradle up to 15 degrees from the horizontal plane.

Fig. 8: Servomotor

3.2.8 Arduino UNO

Arduino is an open-source platform (prototype platform) which is based on an easy-to-use hardware as well as software. It
comprises a circuit board, which shall be programmed (usually known as a microcontroller) and a software called Arduino IDE
(Integrated Development Environment), with which one can write and upload the computer code on to the physical board. The
Arduino microcontroller board is very easy to use one yet a powerful single board computer. It has gained considerably a good
adhesion in the hobby as well as the professional market. Arduino is referred to as open-source, which means that the hardware is
reasonably priced as per the usage and the development software is free of cost.

Fig. 9: Arduino board

4. SOFTWARE USED TO DESIGN THE PROPOSED SYSTEM

4.1 Python
.Python is a high-level scripting programming language. It has features of object-oriented programming language, constructs
forming and easily understandable with comparatively less syntax sub born programming language. Python has a fast interpreter
and fast compiler feature when compared to other programming languages. It has the benefit of fast real-time processing

4.2 Arduino IDE

Arduino IDE consists of program editor, interpreter, built, debugger, hex file generator, input-output console (like a serial
monitor). In Arduino IDE we can construct source code in two different basic structures. The former one called the setup, in
which we declare the variables and initialize the input-output pin mode. The latter part is called the loop in which we write the
conditional statements, iterative statements and function call all of which will run in a loop.

4.3 MS Excel
Microsoft developed a spreadsheet that can be used for analyzing and a decision-making tool for explicitly monitored data. The
measuring instruments and devices that require data analyzer and report make take advantage of functionalities of the MS Excel
spreadsheet. The monitored data will be stored for the future reference.
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 M K Anushree, R Krishna; International Journal of Advance Research, Ideas and Innovations in Technology
5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The execution of the system designed is provided below:

Fig. 10: Output result viewed from LCD display

Fig. 11: Result viewed from the serial monitor

Fig. 12: Output obtained on the Excel sheet to maintain database.

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 M K Anushree, R Krishna; International Journal of Advance Research, Ideas and Innovations in Technology

Fig. 13: Graphical representation of the obtained data.

Fig. 14: Snapshot of the sensor system showing the sensed value output.

Fig. 15: Snapshot of the control system

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 M K Anushree, R Krishna; International Journal of Advance Research, Ideas and Innovations in Technology

Fig. 16: Python GUI controlling console

6. CONCLUSION
This project has a vast application in the field of agriculture research and development. We can conclude that the sensors used in
the sensing part of the project are ample for the reading of parameters required for the growth of plants kept in observation and the
actuators are capable of providing the necessary materials to the plant. As per the data obtained in excel sheet and the graph
generated in the observation period under different ambient conditions, we can infer the fast growth rate by implementing this
system for different plants and can acquire data to maintain fast plant growth rate and its bi-products that too increases the lifespan
of certain plants (vegetable plants).

7. REFERENCES
[1] Nikesh Gondchawar, Prof. Dr. R. S. Kawitkar, “IoT based Smart Agriculture” International Journal of Advanced Research in
Computer and Communication Engineering Vol. 5, Issue 6, ISSN (Online) 2278-1021 ISSN (Print) 2319 5940, June 2016.
[2] Rajalakshmi.P, Mrs.S.Devi Mahalakshmi“ IOT Based Crop-Field Monitoring and Irrigation Automation” 10th International
conference on Intelligent systems and control (ISCO), 7-8 Jan 2016 published in IEEE Xplore Nov 2016.
[3] Tanmay Baranwal, Nitika, Pushpendra Kumar Pateriya “Development of IoT based Smart Security and Monitoring Devices
for Agriculture” 6th International Conference - Cloud System and Big Data Engineering, 978-1-4673-8203-8/16, 2016 IEEE.
[4] Nelson Sales, Artur Arsenio, “Wireless Sensor and Actuator System for Smart Irrigation on the Cloud”978-1-5090-0366-
2/15, 2nd World Forum on the Internet of Things (WF-IoT) Dec 2015, published in IEEE Xplore Jan 2016.
[5] Mohamed Rawidean Mohd Kassim, Ibrahim Mat, Ahmad Nizar Harun, “Wireless Sensor Network in Precision agriculture
application” International conference on computer, Information and telecommunication systems (CITS), July 2014 published
in IEEE Xplore.
[6] Sherine M. Abd EI-Kader, Basma M.Mohammad EI-Basioni, Precision fanning solution in Egypt using the wireless sensor
network technology, Egyptian InformaticsJournal, 14, 3, 221-233.

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