IOT BASED SMART AGRICULTURE SYSTEM

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

In recent years, the Internet of Things (IoT) has changed the world like the Internet did. The IoT has
been considered to be one of the most important research topics. The IoT can be defined as billions of passive
and active networked devices communicating with each other. The communication between IoT devices can
be achieved anytime and anywhere using services by any links. In addition, there are many IoT applications
in all aspects of our lives, such as military, security, marketing, and healthcare.

India has agriculture as its primary occupation. According to IBEF (India Brand Equity Foundation),
58% of the people living in rural areas in India are dependent on agriculture. As per the Central Statistics
Office 2nd advised estimate, the contribution of agriculture to the Gross Value Addition (India) is estimated
to be roughly around 8% which is very significant contribution. Under such a scenario, the usage of water
especially the fresh water resource by agriculture will be enormous and according to the current market
surveys it is estimated that agriculture uses 85% of available freshwater resources worldwide, and this
percentage will continue to be dominant because of population growth and increased food demand.

In this, we develop a smart agriculture system with the concept of the internet of things. Technology
maintains the conceptual thinking of a farmer to smart agro-business which performs the path to the next era
of soft computing. One of the main areas where IOT based research is going on and new products are launching
on an everyday basis to make the activities smarter and efficient towards better production is in the field of
Agriculture. Using the Internet of Things in agriculture is undeniably the smartest way to feed humanity. But
IoT promises even more. It's one of the few realistic ways to sustainably feed a growing population. IoT
enhances crop monitoring and produces crops on the maximum power of implant. The impact of the Internet
of Things (IoT) and connected devices in this modern-day world is undeniable.

A smart and intelligent agriculture system which can help the farmer to utilize the water level sensibly
and also take care of other discrepancy factors like unrequired animal entry into the fields are discussed. The
system consists of a microcontroller and sensors like moisture, temperature, humidity, motion etc. but not
limited to only these. The system uses both wired and wireless connections for the communication between
the sensors, microcontroller and the internet. The system also consists of an android application which allows
the user to give his/her input based on which the watering will be controlled.

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IOT BASED SMART AGRICULTURE SYSTEM

Smart Agriculture System is proposed in this paper which will use concept of IOT, WSN and cloud
computing to help farmer plan an irrigation schedule for his farm through a agriculture profile which can be
edited as per his/her requirements. Based on the users input an automated irrigation system is developed to
optimize water use for agricultural crops. The system has a distributed wireless network for soil- moisture and
temperature sensors placed in the root zone of the plants. In addition, a gateway unit handles sensor
information, triggers actuators, and transmits data to a web application. An algorithm was developed with
threshold values of temperature and soil moisture that was programmed into a micro controller-based gateway
to control water quantity. Proper scheduling of irrigation and fertilization is very important for proper
development of crops.

The several factors which affect the amount of water required by crops in various climatic conditions
are: Temperature, Humidity, Sunshine, Wind speed, Passive infrared sensor, Seed monitoring, Pesticide. The
collected and sensed climatic data from field along with weather data from web repositories can be used to
take several effective decisions for increasing production of crops. If environmental condition is hot, dry,
sunny, windy then there is need of high amount of water for crops and if these factors are like cold, humid,
cloudy, little wind then the need of water is less for the crops.

Smart Agricultural Technology enables the farmers to have better control over the process of growing
crops and rearing livestock. This way it brings massive efficiencies of scale, cuts costs, and helps in saving
scarce resources, like water. Farmers and growers can reduce the waste and increase the productivity that
ranges from the quantity of fertilizer utilized to the number of journeys made by farm vehicles. An IoT solution
for farming and agricultural purposes, it gets essential to choose sensors for the device. This ultimately
depends on the type of information that you are looking to collect and what you desire to do with the collected
data. Ensure that the sensors' quality is great as that is vital for the success of your IoT solution. After all,
success depends on the collected data's accuracy and reliability.

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IOT BASED SMART AGRICULTURE SYSTEM

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE SURVEY

“Sensor networks data acquisition and task management for decision support of smart agriculture [1]”:

Authors: Sinung Suakanto, Ventje J. L. Engel, Maclaurin Hutagalung, Dina Angela,

In this paper, Agricultural sector has been facing great challenges in order to feed the increasing
number of population living in the world. In the future, it will be very difficult to rely on traditional farming
to produce food. Some researchers and industry experts have begun developing smart farming by utilizing
information technology. This paper presents the conceptual model and system design for decision support of
smart farming with network sensor applications in order to perform necessary tasks required for farmers. We
propose a comprehensive model using Internet of Things (IoT) approach which will be applied to agriculture.
Data acquisition via sensors, control and tasks management, and data analysis are considered in the
development of model and system design. In this system, we propose a solution to help farmers facing
problems of tasks management and planning, environment factors measurements, and information distribution.

“ Smart agriculture system using sensors for agricultural task automation [2]”:

Authors: Chetan Dwarkani M, Ganesh Ram R, Jagannathan S, R. Priyatharshini,

Agriculture is the broadest economic sector and plays an important role in the overall economic
development of a nation. Technological advancements in the arena of agriculture will ascertain to increase the
competence of certain farming activities. In this paper, we have proposed a novel methodology for smart
farming by linking a smart sensing system and smart irrigator system through wireless communication
technology. Our system focuses on the measurement of physical parameters such as soil moisture content,
nutrient content, and pH of the soil that plays a vital role in farming activities. Based on the essential physical
and chemical parameters of the soil measured, the required quantity of green manure, compost, and water is
splashed on the crops using a smart irrigator, which is mounted on a movable overhead crane system. The
detailed modeling and control strategies of a smart irrigator and smart farming system are demonstrated in
this paper.

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IOT BASED SMART AGRICULTURE SYSTEM

“Automated Irrigation System Using a Wireless Sensor Network and GPRS Module [3]”:

Authors: Joaquín Gutiérrez, Juan Francisco Villa-Medina, Alejandra Nieto-Garibay, and Miguel Ángel
Porta- Gándara

In this paper, An automated irrigation system was developed to optimize water use for agricultural crops. The
system has a distributed wireless network of soil-moisture and temperature sensors placed in the root zone of
the plants. In addition, a gateway unit handles sensor information, triggers actuators, and transmits data to a
web application. An algorithm was developed with threshold values of temperature and soil moisture that was
programmed into a microcontroller-based gateway to control water quantity. The system was powered by
photovoltaic panels and had a duplex communication link based on a cellular-Internet interface that allowed
for data inspection and irrigation scheduling to be programmed through a web page. The automated system
was tested in a sage crop field for 136 days and water savings of up to 90% compared with traditional irrigation
practices of the agricultural zone were achieved. Three replicas of the automated system have been used
successfully in other places for 18 months. Because of its energy autonomy and low cost, the system has the
potential to be useful in water limited geographically isolated areas.

“ Wireless Sensor Networks & Iot In Saffron & Wheat Crops: A Smart Agriculture Perspective [4]”:

Authors: Rasooli, M. W., Bhushan, B., & Kumar, N,

In this paper , improve the sector of agriculture with the use of the internet of things based Smart Farming
techniques it improves the whole agri-business by keeping an eye on the field in real-time. Sensors has a very
vital role in for the interconnectivity and data gathering, IoT device not only provided new techniques for the
farmers but it also increased the time-management of the farmers. With the use of the IoT's now farmers
require lesser time on field as IoT powered devices are working for him/her. It reduced the workload of farmers
as well as the wastage of many useful resources like water used for irrigation and electricity usage, as it
required for the working of so many electrical appliances. IoT devices can easily be used to monitor the real
time applications. IoT has the potential to new shape the world so that agriculture will be smart agriculture.
We want to control everything from the far way, for example, irrigation, temperature, etc. so we have to use
WSN, Wi-Fi or ZigBee modules for controlling the crops. This paper aims to address the use of Internet of
Things in the field of agriculture sector.

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IOT BASED SMART AGRICULTURE SYSTEM

“A control system in intelligent agriculture by using arduino technology [5]”:

Authors: Narayut Putjaika, Sasimanee Phusae, Anupong Chen-Im, Phond Phunchongharn and Khajonpong
Akkarajit Sakul,

In this paper, we focus on the control part which are watering and roofing systems of an outdoor farm
based on the statistical data sensed from the sensor systems (including temperature, humidity, moisture and
light intensity sensors) Since the sensed data would not be always accurate due to noises, we apply Kalman
filtering to smooth the data before using as an input in our decision making process. For the decision making
process, we do not consider only the sensed data, but also the weather information. A decision tree model is
generated to predict the weather condition. Then, a set of decision rules based on both the sensed data and the
predicted weather condition is developed to automatically make a decision on whether watering and roofing
system should be on or off. Moreover, we also provide functions for users to manually control the watering
and roofing systems via our mobile application.

“IOT based smart village [6]”:

Authors: Tejas Bangera, Akshar Chauhan, Harsh Dedhia, Ritesh Godambe, Manoj Mishra,

In this paper, idea of Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the future prospects of technology. The rationale
behind its working is the amalgamation of web, mobile and Information and Communications technology. It
enables various devices in a system to communicate and interact with each other to perform their job in a
harmonious way. The rising population of the world makes it necessary to facilitate the cities and villages to
function in a smart way. In a country like India, where majority of population lives in villages, huge efforts
have been made to automate cumbersome and mundane tasks in city homes and offices. However, very little
has been done in villages where IoT could play a vital role in bringing 'smartness' to the typical village
activities. This project mainly focuses on making three aspects in a typical village smart viz irrigation, cattle
feeding, and the public distribution system (Ration).

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IOT BASED SMART AGRICULTURE SYSTEM

“ IOT Based Crop-Field Monitoring and Irrigation Automation [7]”:

Authors: Rajalakshmi P and S. Devi Mahalakshmi,

In this paper, the proposed method aims at making agriculture smart using automation and IoT
technologies. Internet of Things (IoT) enables various applications crop growth monitoring and selection,
irrigation decision support, etc. A Raspberry Pi based automatic irrigation IOT system is proposed to
modernization and improves productivity of the crop. main aim of this work to crop development at low
quantity water consumption, In order to focus on water available to the plants at the required time, for that
purpose most of the farmers waste lot time in the fields. An efficient management of water should be
developed and the system circuit complexity to be reduced. The proposed system developed on the information
sent from the sensors and estimate the quantity of water needed. A two sensors are used to get the data to the
base station the humidity and the temperature of the soil, the humidity, the temperature, and the duration of
sunshine per day. The proposed systems based on these values and calculate the water quantity for irrigation
is required. The major advantage the system is implementing of Precision Agriculture (PA) with cloud
computing, that will optimize the usage of water fertilizers while maximizing the yield of the crops and also
will help in analyzing the weather conditions of the field.

“Developing a human-centric agricultural model in the IOT environment [8]”:

Authors:A. Abdullah Na, William Isaac,

The prevalent state of agriculture, especially in developing countries, is not efficient and organized
enough to address the growing demand for food, a direct result of the increasing human population. Internet
of things and cloud computing together have provided a promising opportunity to resolve the challenges posed
by this increasing demand worldwide. By employing IoT and cloud services, and through precision farming
tactics, the efficiency and quality of agricultural production, storage and transportation can be tremendously
improved. In this paper, we present the architecture of a multilayered enabling platform for incorporating IoT
technologies in the agricultural sector. This work makes important contributions by proposing a feasible
human-centric IoT model for agriculture with special emphasis on developing nations

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IOT BASED SMART AGRICULTURE SYSTEM

CHAPTER 3
PROPOSED SYSTEM

The development of a smart agriculture system using sensors, microcontroller within an IOT system is
presented. The aim of the implementation is to demonstrate the smart and intelligent capabilities of the
microcontroller to allow the decisions to be taken on watering the plants based on the continuous monitoring
of the environmental conditions in the field. It also aims at a predefined irrigation schedule as per the farmers
convenience, uploaded into the application developed for the same. The implementation is a photovoltaic
powered automated irrigation system that consists of a distributed wireless network of soil moisture and
temperature sensors deployed in plant root zones. These sensors continuously monitor the parameters and
send it to the Arduino board for further processing which acts as an IOT gateway. This gateway has been
given the wireless capability by installing a Wi-Fi module which will be updating the data to the cloud. The
IOT gateway also has the GSM capability through the module connected. This receiver unit also has a duplex
communication link based on a cellular-Internet interface, using general packet radio service (GPRS) protocol,
which is a packet-oriented mobile data service used in 2G and 4G cellular global system for mobile
communications (GSM). The data being uploaded to the cloud allows the user to continuously view the
parameters from the comforts of his/her home or wherever on the go. The system has the capacity to adapt
based on the user input which the farmer can input through the smart agriculture application.
The farmer can select a profile based on the season and the crop for irrigation and schedule and plan the water
resource utilization sensibly. The volumetric water content in the soil is a primary factor which gives a
suggestion that the water is required for the crops. In the absence of this system the farmer has to manually
inspect these for all the crops by inspecting the soil in the fields which is tedious, time consuming and straining.
This can be taken care by the intelligent system which informs the user whenever the water content goes below
the threshold set by the farmer himself. Intrusion of animals especially cows, monkeys, dogs etc to the fields
is a very common issue and one of the factors for disruption or disturbance to the yield. This requires one
person to continuously guard the fields at all the times which will not be accurate and the productivity of one
person is wasted. This can be overcome by this system which has a motion sensor to detect the presence of
any animal in the fields and send notifications to the farmer in their presence. The distance range for which
the farmer needs to detect the animals can be allowed to set by the farmer himself in the application in the
beginning.

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IOT BASED SMART AGRICULTURE SYSTEM

3.1 SYSTEM DESIGN

Fig 3.1 System Architecture

The system architecture consists of a Arduino Uno R3 microcontroller board, sensors like LM 35
temperature sensor, humidity, moisture and motion sensor, a Wi-Fi module i.e. ESP8266 and a GSM module
as shown in Fig. 3.1. The software consists of an android application which includes setting up of the profile
for predefined irrigation based on the seasons or on daily and weekly mode. The software has also been
programmed to send a notification to the farmer whenever the physical parameters sensed are below the
threshold value and based on the farmers input a control signal will be sent to the Arduino Uno to either switch
ON/OFF the irrigation.

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IOT BASED SMART AGRICULTURE SYSTEM

The Arduino Uno board controls all the activities taking place on board and acts as the IoT gateway.
Sensors sense all the physical parameters and convert the analogue value to digital value. Temperature and
humidity sensors are used to measure the temperature and humidity respectively on field. Soil Moisture Sensor
are of capacitive type, and are used to measure the moisture of the soil. The yield of crops is affected by the
speed with which the wind blows also. This is also measured in our developed system. For capturing data in
real time from the sensors, a RTC module is also incorporated. This data is then transmitted to the IOT gateway.

The IOT gateway then transmits the data to the cloud using the Wi-Fi module. The cloud in our system will
include a Web Server, a database and a decision logic. The database will maintain the data received from the
IOT gateway. The decision logic then decides whether the farmer action is needed to water the plants. For
example, in the developed system a threshold for temperature is kept at 25 ◦C. Whenever the temperature goes
above the threshold temperature, the database will trigger an action to the decision logic which then sends a
notification to the developed Smart Farming Android application. The farmer will also get notified by a SMS
to his registered mobile phone. Based on the farmers action whether to turn ON/OFF the watering, a signal
will be sent to the cloud and from the cloud to the gateway which will then send a signal to trigger the relay
and turn on the water pump.

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IOT BASED SMART AGRICULTURE SYSTEM

CHAPTER 4
IMPLEMENTATION

IOT based smart agriculture system is used to generate decisions regarding irrigation using real time data.
First of all, farmer logs in to the system using his credentials such as username and password from an Android
application. He is then allowed to select the crop for that season. System is implemented in three phases.
• Sensing
• Processing
• Information distribution.
The sensing phase involves the sensing of the physical parameters which includes temperature, moisture,
humidity and motion. All these sensors are attached to the Arduino Uno R3 microcontroller board. This board
acts as the IOT gateway in the developed system as it has the capacity to transmit the data to the cloud. This
transmission is done using Wi-Fi ESP8266 module.
The processing phase takes place in the cloud. The cloud consists of a Web Server, a database where the
sensed data is maintained and a decision logic which takes decisions based on the sensed data.
In the information distribution phase, the output of the decision logic will be sent to the android application
and then to the IOT gateway.
The sensors are interfaced with Microcontroller, data from the sensor is displayed on the mobile app of the
user. A mobile app provides an access to continuous data from sensors and accordingly helps the farmer to
take action to fulfill the requirements of the soil. Farming is a labor-intensive task that requires lots of time
and effort. Usually, these tasks are repetitive and monotonous. Farmers can delegate these labor-intensive
tasks to robotics and automation-based solutions. Such solutions can perform tasks that range from seeding
and watering to harvesting and sorting.

The end-to-end algorithm of the smart farming system is given below:

Start
o Continuously acquire sensor data
o A/D conversion of the sensed data on the Arduino Board
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IOT BASED SMART AGRICULTURE SYSTEM

o Send the data to the cloud through the IOT Gateway

o If the data is above the threshold
▪ Send a notification to the Smart Farming Application
▪ If user selects Turn ON
• Send a control signal to the server i.e. cloud
• Control signal is then sent to the IOT gateway
• The IOT gateway triggers the relay and the water pump is turned
▪ Else if user selects turn OFF
• Send a control signal to the server i.e. cloud
• Control signal is then sent to the IOT gateway
• The IOT gateway triggers the relay and the water pump is turned OFF
▪ Endif
o Else
▪ Continue checking for the threshold condition
o Endif
End

The Smart Farming Application is developed on Android. The features that are provided in this application
are as follows :
1. Selection to turn ON/OFF the water pump
2. Selection of an irrigation profile i.e. the farmer can choose a time on a particular day to start the irrigation
and a time to stop the irrigation. This facilitates the farmer to invest his time in some other productive work.
The application profile also allows the farmer to select the same schedule for a week or a month.
3. Suggestion to the farmer to use a particular pesticide for their crop
4. Notify the farmer on the invasion of the field by animals.

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IOT BASED SMART AGRICULTURE SYSTEM

CHAPTER 5
5.1 BENEFITS

Efficiency:- IOT-enabled agriculture allows farmers to monitor their products and conditions in
realtime. They get insights fast, can predict issues before they happen, and make informed decisions
on how to avoid them.

• Expansion:- By the time we have 9 billion people on the planet, 70% of them will live in urban
areas. IoT-based greenhouses and hydroponic systems enable short food supply chains and should be
able to feed the people.

• Reduced resources:- Plenty of IoT solutions are focused on optimizing the use of resources—water,
energy, land. Precision farming using IoT relies on the data collected from diverse sensors in the field
which helps farmers accurately allocate just enough resources within one plant.

• Clean process:- Not only do IOT-based systems for precision farming help producers save water
and energy and, thus, make farming greener, but also significantly scale down on the use of pesticides
and fertilizer.

• Agility:- One of the benefits of using IoT in agriculture is the increased agility of the processes.
Thanks to real-time monitoring and prediction systems, farmers can quickly respond to any significant
change in weather, humidity, air quality as well as the health of each crop or soil in the field.

• Improved product quality:- Data-driven agriculture helps both grow more and better products.
Using soil and crop sensors, aerial drone monitoring, and farm mapping, farmers better understand
detailed dependencies between the conditions and the quality of the crops.

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IOT BASED SMART AGRICULTURE SYSTEM

5.2 ADVANTAGES

• This technology integration would result in higher productivity with minimal resource wastage.
• It is time saving, monitoring and providing the conditions which are required for plants is easy by
this process.
• There are some issues in the conventional farming, which could be overcome by this process.
Right amount of water is supplied to plants through the irrigation system as excessive watering
may damage the plant's growth, however, rainfall water might not be sufficient for the plants.

• Easy to monitor the moisture and temperature levels by getting the alerts from the sensors readings.

• It is operated automatically by using temperature and humidity sensors.

• When the soil is dry automatically the water motor will pump water to field. When the soil is too
wet we will receive the alert that soil is wet and we proceed with the further action.

5.3 DISADVANTAGES

• There could be a wrong analysis of weather conditions.

• Devices are to be altered according to the farmers, it will involve equipment which will be
expensive.

• If there are faulty data processing equipment or sensors, then it will lead to a situation where the
decisions are taken wrong.

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IOT BASED SMART AGRICULTURE SYSTEM

CONCLUSION

IOT based smart agriculture system can prove to be very helpful for farmers since over as well as less irrigation
is not good for agriculture. Threshold values for climatic conditions like humidity, temperature, moisture can
be fixed based on the environmental conditions of that particular region. The system also senses the invasion
of animals which is a primary reason for reduction in crops. This system generates irrigation schedule based
on the sensed real time data from field and data from the weather repository. This system can recommend
farmer whether or not, is there a need for irrigation. Continuous internet connectivity is required. This can be
overcome by extending the system to send suggestion via SMS to the farmer directly on his mobile using
GSM module instead of mobile app.

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IOT BASED SMART AGRICULTURE SYSTEM

REFERENCES

[1] Sinung Suakanto, Ventje J. L. Engel, Maclaurin Hutagalung, Dina Angela, “Sensor networks data
acquisition and task management for decision support of smart agriculture,” in 2016 International Conference
on Information Technology Systems and Innovation (ICITSI) Bandung – Bali, pp. 24–27, Oct. 2016.

[2] Chetan Dwarkani M, Ganesh Ram R, Jagannathan S, R. Priyatharshini “Smart agriculture system using
sensors for agricultural task automation,” in 2015 IEEE International Conference on Technological
Innovations in ICT for Agriculture and Rural Development (TIAR 2015).

[3] Nikesh Gondchwar, R. S. Kawitkar, “IOT based smart agriculture,” International journal Of Advanced
research in computer and Communication Engineering (IJARCCE), vol. 5, no. 6, Jun. 2016.

[4] Narayut Putjaika, Sasimanee Phusae, Anupong Chen-Im, Phond Phunchongharn and Khajonpong
Akkarajit Sakul, “A control system in intelligent agriculture by using arduino technology,” in Fifth ICT
International Student Project Conference(ICT-ISPC), 2016.

[5] Tejas Bangera, Akshar Chauhan, Harsh Dedhia, Ritesh Godambe, Manoj Mishra, “IOT based smart
village,” InternationalJournal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT), vol. 32, no. 6, Feb. 2016, ISSN:
2231- 5381.

[6] Jeetendra Shenoy, Yogesh Pingle “IOT in agriculture,” 978-9-3805- 4421-2/16/, IEEE. 2016.

[7] Rajalakshmi P and S. Devi Mahalakshmi, IOT Based Crop-Field Monitoring and Irrigation Automation.

[8]Xiaojun, C., Xianpeng, L., & Peng, X. (2015, January). IOT-based air pollution monitoring and forecasting
system. In 2015 international conference on computer and computational sciences (ICCCS) (pp. 257-260).
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IOT BASED SMART AGRICULTURE SYSTEM

[9] Abdullah Na, William Isaac, “Developing a human-centric agricultural model in the IOT environment,”
in 2016 International Conference on Internet of Things and Applications (IOTA) Maharashtra Institute of
Technology, Pune, India 22 Jan - 24 Jan, 2016, 978-1-5090-0044-9/16, 2016 IEEE.

[10] Lee, I., & Lee, K. (2015). The Internet of Things (IoT): Applications, investments, and challenges for
enterprises. Business Horizons, 58(4), 431-440.

[11] Rasooli, M. W., Bhushan, B., & Kumar, N. (2020). Applicability of wireless sensor networks & IoT in
saffron & wheat crops: A smart agriculture perspective. Int. J. Scientifi c Technol. Res, 9(2), 2456-2461.

[12] Lee, I., & Lee, K. (2015). The Internet of Things (IoT): Applications, investments, and challenges for
enterprises. Business Horizons, 58(4), 431-440.

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