Internet of things technology for greenhouse monitoring and management system based on wireless sensor network

Abstract

The rapid development of agrotechnology is playing an important role in the production of greenhouse plantation for cultivating high value fruits, flowers or vegetables. It is imperative to constantly monitor these high value crops optimal requirements at every phase of the plant growth cycle to maintain the best quality production. However, traditional manual inspection, data collection and control method for large-scale greenhouse plantation deemed inefficient with high costs, time consuming and laborious. This project introduces a scheduler to enhance greenhouse management by taking into considerations the different phases of plant growth. The scheduling concept is also a contribution to this research projects implemented and it is believed there is no specific study on scheduling concepts in the automation system according to specific cycles and phases in the crop. Measuring several points in a greenhouse are required to trace down the local climate parameters to ensure the automation system works properly. Cabling would make the measurement system expensive and vulnerable in a large greenhouse plantation. Moreover, the cabled measurement points are complicated and difficult to maintain and relocate once they are installed. Thus, a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) consisting of small-size wireless sensor nodes based on ZigBee technology is an attractive and cost-efficient option to build the required system. The system is used to sense and monitor the temperature, humidity, light, soil moisture and carbon dioxide which are essential in the photosynthesis process. The scheduler is build using Visual Basic C# to analyse, display and control the actuators in real-time.