Development of a Low-Cost Open-Source Platform Connected to the Internet for Acquisition of Environmental Parameters and Soil Moisture

Abstract

The development of the Internet and the technologies associated with it has allowed disseminating and cheapening of communication equipment, prototyping services, electronic sensors, and all types of devices. Agriculture has benefited from these technological advances to boost its productivity and profitability. This study presents the development of a data acquisition and device control platform to obtain, in real-time and remotely, information from the field for decision-making and process automation. All electronic components are low-cost and “open hardware”, and the software is “open-source”. The developed platform was validated during a development cycle of two lettuce varieties (Japanese and crisp), in which the soil water matric potential was monitored at two depths (10 and 25 cm), while solar irradiation, air temperature, and soil temperature were evaluated only to monitor the cycle. The platform automatically and satisfactorily controlled the applied irrigation depths using only the data of matric potential by activating a solenoid valve and made the information from the sensors available on the ThingSpeak Internet of Things (IoT) platform.