International Journal of Advance Science and Technology

Vol. 29, No. 10S, (2020), pp.1679-1687

IoT based Hydroponic Monitoring System

Jayeta Das 1, Paras Chawla2, Gagan Jot3
1,2,3
Electronics and Communication Engineering, University Institute of Engineering, Chandigarh
University, Punjab 140413, INDIA

Abstract
Vertical farming is the process of growing vegetation in vertically assembled layers, in this system
land can be used more efficiently and can be implemented in an indoor environment. The major idea
of vertical farming is to make a technology in which all the environmental factors that are suitable for
plant growth can be controlled. In Vertical farming, various modern organic farming techniques are
being used like hydroponics, aeroponics or aquaponics. The hydroponic system of farming is a
fascinating method that uses a lesser amount of land. In hydroponic system, crops are grown-up using
a nutrient solution mixed in water and without the use of soil. In this project, an automated
hydroponic system is made by the implementation of IoT(Internet of Thing) to provide a controlled
environment for the plants. The major function of this project is to make a system that uses IoT
devices to monitor various factors like temperature, humidity, pH of nutrient solution, CO2 content in
the air, total dissolved solution(TDS), and intensity of LED lights. To make the system easy to control,
an android application is used to control IoT devices through a web browser on mobile phones and
other handheld or compact devices. With this development, monitoring of the hydroponic system has
become easier and plant growth can be looked after from time to time with no worker at the event.

Keywords – Vertical Farming, Hydroponic, Soil-less Farming, Internet of things, Smart Farm, Mobile
Application, Microcontrollers.

I. INTRODUCTION

Agricultural lands are decreasing in all over the world. The reason behind this is the conversion of
agriculture into the industries and into settlement purposes. And in countries like India, most of the
population depends on farming as the source of income. Due to irregular weather conditions and
unevenness in the availability of water throughout the whole year give rise to serious problems.

Farming in city areas is the key to tackle the diminishing agricultural land. Urban farming can be done
by utilizing the leftover or unoccupied land in urban areas, like on the top of roofs, balconies, terraces
and on the walls of buildings. The farming techniques that can be used in city areas is the hydroponic
method of farming.

The hydroponic system is the technique of growing vegetation without the use of soil, in this system
nutrient solution is mixed with water and is used as a food source for the growth of plants. But at the
same time, it is essential to deal with other factors, some of the variables that we have to deal with are
the pH value and the TDS(Total Dissolved Solution) of the nutrient solution. To build a system like
mentioned above, some of the most important components are required and one of them is the
microcontroller. Arduino microcontroller is most easily available and is well accepted among the
developer society, and this is the reason it is chosen to be used in this project. It is used to manage and
examine all the data from interconnected devices and sensors.This system consists of mainly three
stages. The first stage is about the detection of all sensors that were used in this project which include
temperature and humidity inside the room, pH and TDS(Total Dissolved Solution) of the nutrient
solution, the intensity of LED light and level of water in the reservoir.

ISSN: 2005-4238 IJAST 1679

Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC
 International Journal of Advance Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No. 10S, (2020), pp.1679-1687

The second stage is about regulating the whole system by observing the readings from the sensors,
like the air temperature inside the room, humidity, pH and TDS value of the nutrient solution that can
be controlled.

The third stage is to look at the notification on mobile phones to inform the users about the changes.
The user can handle the devices that are used in the setup through the android applications.

II. METHODOLOGY

1. Devices Used

Device Description

Arduino It is a microcontroller board based on Atmega2560. It

Mega 2560 has 16 analog input pins and 54 digital input/output
pins out of which 15 pins are used for Pulse Width
Modulation (PWM). It has 16 MHZ crystal oscillator, 4
UARTS (Hardware serial ports), with a USB
connection, a power jack, an ICSP header an a rest
button.

pH Sensor It is a scientific instrument that is used to measure

hydrogen ion concentration in water-based solutions,
which specify acidity or alkalinity of the solution,
expressed as pH.

CO2 Sensor It is an air quality sensor device that detects various

(MQ135) chemical contents in the atmosphere and converts the
chemical concentration into a suitable voltage range
that can be processed by Arduino or any
Microcontroller. It can detect Smoke, Alcohol,
Benzene, Butane, Propane, etc.

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Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC
 International Journal of Advance Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No. 10S, (2020), pp.1679-1687

Temperature and It is a digital temperature and humidity sensor. It

Humidity consists of a capacitive humidity sensing element and
Sensor(DHT 11) contains a thermistor for sensing temperature. It
produces a digital signal on the data pin.

Water Level It is a water level sensor, it detects the level of water in

Sensor the tank and then relays the information back to the
control panel.

LDR Sensor It is LDR (Light Dependent Resistor) used for light

sensing purposes in the system. It has a variable
resistance that changes with the light intensity that falls
on it.

TDS Sensor It is a TDS meter, used to show Total Dissolved Solids

in a solution that is it monitors the number of nutrients,
salts or impurities in solution. It measures the
conductivity of the solution and then estimates TDS
from the reading.

Water Pump It is a water pump, used to deliver the nutrient solution

to the plants from the water tank.

„Table 1: Description of devices used in project

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Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC
 International Journal of Advance Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No. 10S, (2020), pp.1679-1687

2. System Architecture :

Light Water
sensor Level
Sensor

CO2 Temperature
Sensor Arduino and
Board Humidity
TDS Sensor
Sensor
ATmega
328
Wired/Wireles
s connection
based on
pH
requirement
Sensor

Power Supply

Figure 1 : System‟s Architecture

The system architecture of this project is shown in Figure 1. The different sensors and the
microcontroller that are used in making an indoor Hydroponic system is shown below.

3. Hardware Design:

The connection of all the components is shown below in Figure 2, in this connection we have used
three LCDs to show the readings of all the sensors. The connection is made using fritzing software.

Figure 2: Component and connection diagram of the system

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Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC
 International Journal of Advance Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No. 10S, (2020), pp.1679-1687

The sensors that are used in this system are pH sensor, CO2 Sensor, temperature and humidity sensor,
LDR sensor and a water level sensor.

4. Experimental Setup:

In this project, the experimental setup of indoor Hydroponic farming is shown in Figure 3.Three
racks are made for growing plants. The growing media is built with PVC pipes that contain Spinach,
Grand Rapids and Romaine lettuce plants. Each platform is provided with LED lights to give light to
the plants for their photosynthesis process.

Figure 3: Working Model

Different types of sensors have been used to make a survey. The sensors that are used in this system
are, an LDR sensor to detect the light intensity of the LED. A water level sensor is placed in the tank
that will detect the level of water. It will send a notification to users at three different times. First
when the water level is 70%. The second will be sent when the water level goes to 50% and a third
notification will be received by the user when the water level goes to 20%. A pH sensor is placed in
the tank to check the pH of the nutrient solution that is provided to plants for their proper growth. One
CO2 sensor is placed in the system for the detection of CO2 levels in the air inside the room. And a
temperature-humidity sensor is positioned in the system to calculatethe atmospheric temperature and
humidity.

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Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC
 International Journal of Advance Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No. 10S, (2020), pp.1679-1687

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3

Stage 4

Figure 4: Different stages of project setup

The different stages in process of making the indoor hydroponic system is shown in Figure 4. In this
project a self made display board is placed, which display the reading of different sensors that were
used in this project.

5. Software Design:

In this project coding is done using Arduino IDE software . And Blynk App is used to control
Arduino over the internet. Using this app user will get all the reading [15-18] of the sensors that are
placed in setup. And by using Thingspeak which is an IoT platform service that allows to collect,
visualize and examine the information in the cloud. The data is send to Thingspeak from the device
and then the data is send to the users using web services. ESP8266 Wi-Fi module is used in this
project.

Software Details

Arduino IDE It is used write and upload

program in Arduino to deal with
the sensors.

Blynk App It is a platform with android

Apps to control Arduino over
the internet.
Cloud https://Thingspeak.com
Platfrom

Table 2:Description of software used in this project.

The entire coding for interfacing Arduino Mega2560 with different sensors is done using Arduino
IDE software. The codings are shown in Figure 5. Arduino 1.8.9 is the version of the software that is
used in this project.

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Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC
 International Journal of Advance Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No. 10S, (2020), pp.1679-1687

Figure 5 :Coding in Arduino IDE Software.

III. RESULT

After installation of all the devices in the hydroponic system the values from all the sensors is shown
in the mobile application, the screen of the application on the mobile phone appears as shown in
Figure 6. And the sensors can be controlled by this mobile application.

Figure 6 : Mobile monitoring using Blynk App.

First Experiment :

The first experiment is about testing the CO2 sensor and temperature-humidity sensor (DHT 11).
Then we tested whether it could be controlled by a mobile application(Blynk App) and it worked.

Second Experiment :

In the second experiment, we have tested the pH sensors and the TDS sensor. The TDS sensor was
manually handled and then we tested that the pH sensor could be controlled by the application and the
result was positive, it was functioning automatically.

Third Experiment :

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Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC
 International Journal of Advance Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No. 10S, (2020), pp.1679-1687

In the third experiment, we placed LED lights in each layer of the setup. And placed an LDR sensor to
check the intensity of LED to provide proper light to the plants for their proper photosynthesis
process. Then we tried to check the intensity of LED through the mobile application and it worked
well.

Fourth Experiment :

In the fourth experiment, we monitored the growth of plants under different conditions. We varied the
intensity of LED and CO2 content in the air to see its effect on plant growth.In this project, all the
experiments showed great results by which we can make sure that the whole system could work
properly after the installation of all devices in the setup. Interconnection between the hardware and
the web browser is done successfully.

IV. CONCLUSION

The objective of this paper is successfully achieved to develop an Internet of Things (IoT) based
Hydroponic Farming system based on web server monitor and control air temperature, humidity, pH
of nutrient solution, CO2 level in the air inside the room, the light intensity of the LED. This is an
automatically controlled system, that can be controlled through mobile phones, which can help the
new farmers and people who want to do farming but do not have time to manage it. This system will
be very helpful in the production of a large number of crops. This hydroponic system can be built in
urban areas. It will make life much easier no matter how far the person is from their farm.

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