Greenhouse environment monitoring and automation using Intel Galileo gen and IoT

Abstract

The IoT and cloud computing technologies can be effectively used to combat threats posed to agriculture by global warming and climate change. This work mainly focuses on monitoring the internal parameters of a greenhouse which are its temperature, intensity of light, moisture level of soil, relative humidity and soil pH and upload them to a cloud to facilitate remote monitoring and enable autonomous survival of the crop by automating cooling fans, artificial lighting, heating and watering equipment. It will also enable agriculturists to grow a certain kind of crop year round irrespective of actual geographical location and realizing it in a low cost manner. Another major concern is to reduce the physical workload on farmers and prevent loss to the crop which leads to food scarcity. Green houses are artificial structures that can be viewed as short term measures against adverse environmental conditions. When implemented on a large scale, green houses have the ability to address the problems of food scarcity, damage to the crop and its yield and consequent financial distress on the farmers. They also enable farmers to be more decisive in choosing the right type of crop to cultivate without geographical location being a hurdle. Automation is proposed to eliminate the needs for manual intervention in carrying out all the tasks smoothly which are often tedious and physically demanding. Remote monitoring gives the farmers the opportunity to be aware of what is happening on the field without having to travel to the actual location.