2018 IEEE 6th International Conference on Future Internet of Things and Cloud
Internet of things (IoT) applied to an urban garden
Gabriela Carrión, Mónica Huerta and Boris Barzallo
Universidad Politécnica Salesiana, Cuenca, ECUADOR
gcarrionv@est.ups.edu.ec, (mhuerta,bbarzallo)@ups.edu.ec
Abstract—The constant increase of migration to the urban
area has caused that the rural sector not have the manpower
for agricultural production and is not able to supply food
to the world’s population, which has generated the need to
expand the crops towards the cities. To encourage agricultural
production in urban sectors, the use of technologies capable of
automating and increasing production performance is proposed.
This paper presents the develop of a system for the measurement,
monitoring and automatic irrigation of an urban garden using
Internet of Things (IoT) technology, it has sensors of CO2,
humidity, luminosity, temperature, detection of plants and a
hybrid application for its remote monitoring connected to a
local area network. Also, the communication process used here
is tested in order to provide a great connection service between
the proposed system and the network.
Index Terms—Urban garden, monitoring system, intelligent
irrigation, IoT, communication, protocols.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Currently, around 54% of the world’s population lives in
urban areas, reducing the production rate of the agricultural
sector [1], this has stimulated an increase in urban agriculture
that together with the tendency to have connected and linked
devices, has caused the need to turn urban gardens into intel-
ligent, independent and productive spaces [2]. Technological
advances have made it possible to innovate and automate this
sector, the use of sensors and communication networks being
common during the production process [3], [4]. However,
not all current systems provide uninterrupted connectivity,
reliable data and user-friendly interfaces and also entail high
implementation costs [5]. As these are urban gardens where
their production and space are on a domestic scale, the use
of technologies becomes a more precise selection; the limited
space, resources, environmental conditions and technological
scope of the sector define the characteristics of the implemen-
tation of technological systems [6], [7].
Depending on the need of the agricultural sector and espe-
cially the urban gardens, many proposals have been raised with
different hardware and software structures, where the use of
wireless technologies and intelligent sensors are highlighted.
In [8]–[10] the ZigBee technology is used as the link between
sensor-server and the WiFi protocol as the opening of data
publication, which is monitored in real time through a mobile
application. In the same way there are more complex structures
such as the use of radio frequency identifiers (RFID) for
the detection and individualization of production [11]–[13]
and teledetection technologies together with global positioning
systems (GPS) for the geographical location [12]. Internet
access has been made through Gateway ZigBee in [10], [13]–
[15], due to its speed of transmission, low cost and low energy
978-1-5386-7503-8/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/FiCloud.2018.00030
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consumption, which are often combined with the use of mobile
connections such as general packet radio service (GPRS) [10]–
[14], [16], [17], defining the reach of your network (from
WPAN to WAN). Visualization interfaces allow monitoring,
controling and setting databases in real time; these human-
machine interfaces (HMI) can be web applications [15], [17],
[18], mobile applications [8], [9], [15] or be developed on PC
[11], [13], [14], [19] together with decision support systems
(DSS) that support the concept of precision agriculture and
the approach smart agriculture, as they can reduce labor and
fertilizer supplies, minimize negative environmental impacts
and also increase yields [16].
In the market there are numerous equipment and com-
mercial platforms that use technology of Internet of Things
(IOT) applied to urban gardens, such as PlantLink which is
composed of a sensor and a base station that connects to the
home router to link the entire system to the cloud [20]. The
system is able to monitor a lawn, garden or basket with plants
through the web, email, text messages or notifications on a
mobile device and alert the user when irrigation is needed.
HarvestGeek uses wireless sensors, a hub connected to the
Internet and the cloud to automate the equipment based on
its database, it also provides updates on the plants in real
time, measures the environment and soil conditions in gardens,
greenhouses and hydroponics [21]. Similarly, Bitponics is a
”personal gardening assistant” designed to facilitate hydro-
ponic gardening. It connects the garden with the cloud and
supervises it remotely, uses a network of connected sensors
that are located in the reservoir of the hydroponic system
and monitors pH, temperature and humidity levels. Data is
sent wirelessly to the cloud, and can be viewed by computers,
tablets and smartphones [22]. Under the concept of an urban
greenhouse, GrowCube was designed, which is a sustainable
autonomous aeroponic system. Its computerized system sprays
a nutrient enriched mist over the plants at regular intervals as
the plant carousel rotates around it, being monitored through
mobile and web applications [23].
Due to the high cost of the aforementioned equipment and
the infrastructural requirements necessary for its interconnec-
tion, this paper proposes an economic and efficient system for
measuring, monitoring and automatic irrigation through the
use of IoT technology of an orchard located in the parking
area of the Universidad Politécnica Salesiana from Cuenca,
Ecuador (UPS). The prototype has a mechanical (physical and
motor support), electronic (sensors and actuators) and commu-
nication subsystem, the latter allows linking the system to the
Internet, through a local area network (LAN) and through a
hybrid application (Web/Mobile) to access measurement data
in real time and store them locally.
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 II. M ETHODOLOGY
A. Urban garden requirements for vegetable growing
Urban gardens are living spaces that connect nature with
urban environments, allowing social and cultural development.
The developed system have implemented in the urban garden
located at UPS’ parking and it is composed by Brassica Viridis
and Lactuca Sativa crops, whose main cultivation features are
presented in Table I.
TABLE I
R EQUIREMENTS FOR B RASSICA AND L ACTUCA GROWING
2) Electronic Subsystem (ES): It is composed by a set of
sensors to measure: humidity and temperature environmental,
CO2 and luminosity; humidity and temperature of the soil;
crops proximity and a set of actuators for helping to measure
and water the garden. Also, in this subsystem is installed the
controller which allows controlling all the functions of the
system.
3) IT Subsystem (ITS): The Information Technology sub-
system allows to communicate the system with Internet trough
a set of communication tools and protocols. Furthermore, this
allows the users to know the state of their urban gardens by
using a mobile application.

FEATURES BRASSICA VIRIDIS LACTUCA SATIVA

Humidity 60 - 80 %RH 65 - 90 %RH
Temperature 15 - 20 oC 13 - 25 oC C. System Performance
Crop spacing 30 - 40 cm 30 cm
Soil type preference slightly clayey sandy loam In the Figure 2 is presented the operation of system by
Luminosity high high phases and the elements involved in each one. The per-
formance of the mechanical and electronic subsystems in
the monitoring and irrigation processes is executed in the
acquisition phase; after, the electronic and IT subsystems are
described as the fundamental components for communicating
B. System Design the system with the users through of other phases.
There was developed an embedded system powered by solar
energy and based on three subsystems, as is seen in Figure 1,
that uses IoT for monitoring climatic variables in real time
and watering the garden. The system performs monitoring,
processing, transmission and visualization processes, operating
on a mechanical system.
Fig. 2. Block diagram of the system performance

The first phase was developed to acquire data from the

Fig. 1. Physical architecture of the embedded system.
1) Mechanical Subsystem (MS): It runs on a G-rail with a
wheel-motor mechanism, joined to the rail trough two guides.
This system allows monitoring each section of the urban
garden.
sensors as shown in the Figures 3 and 4. In this phase there
was used six sensors connected to the controller. Once the
acquisition has been done, data were analyzed and processed
by methods of: interpolation, conversion and comparison, to
generate the real values of the measurements and allow system
take operating decisions about the irrigation of the urban
garden monitored.
In the Figure 3 and Figure 4, the processes followed by the
system to perform the monitoring and irrigation functions are
presented.
The variables in the diagrams describe the following:
MS: Displacement of the Mechanical System, measured
in cm.
CP: Proximity of the crop to the proximity sensor, in cm.
SM: Soil moisture, measured in %HR.
EH: Environmental humidity, measured in %RH
Irr[n]: Irrigation vector. Stores data about irrigation needs
for section. If Irr=1, the section needs to be watered.
EV: Electrovalve state. If EV=ON, the irrigation process
is executed.
Once this phase is executed, the information is processed
and transmitted through a LAN structure and can be visualized
by the users using a friendly interface.

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 troller is connected to the sensors, of which the temperature,
brightness and soil moisture sensors use the I2C protocol and
the other four use the ADC protocol to transmit data. In
addition, the controller is linked to the cloud via an IEEE
802.11 wireless device.

Fig. 6. IoT node diagram

The controller sends a data vector using a 8 bits UART

protocol configured to send and receive data at 9600 baud.
Fig. 3. Process flow diagram of the monitoring process. After, the wireless device is used for converting the serial
data into IP data through the wireless communication network.
This step includes communication between the integrated
monitoring and irrigation system, the central communications
base and clients requests, as shown in Figure 7.

Fig. 7. Communications operations architecture

All received information in the cloud is stored in a data

base using MySql Database Server. In the Figure 8 can be
Fig. 4. Process flow diagram of the irrigation process.
observed the database structure. For each user registered, the
system creates in the database a set tables about environment
conditions, soil and crop for monitoring their gardens.
D. System communications
After acquiring and processing the data, the communication
process was executed as indicated in the network topology in
Figure 5. An IoT node sends sensor data to the cloud where
information is processed, as illustrated in Figure 2.

Fig. 8. Database structure

Fig. 5. Communications network topology When a user wants to see the garden state, an HTTP request
is sent from a client device (computer or smartphone) to the
In the Figure 6 is presented the IoT node structure. A con- Web server, immediately the web server sends a request to

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the database server, where the user garden’s information is
searched and sent once again to the web server that sends
an HTTP response to the client device and show all the data
relating to the user’s garden.
By acceding to this service, the user is provided with a
web application than can be managed from a computer or a
smartphone, where must to be registered the user’s information
before the system is put into operation.

III. R ESULTS
A. User Interface
To access to the garden information in a easy way, there was
performed an friendly application using web page designer
software. The final version of this interface and its functions
Fig. 11. Interface. Garden interface section.
are presented in the Figures 9 to 12.

Fig. 12. Interface menu. Upper-right: Access to the brassica monitoring.

Lower-right: Access to the Lactuca monitoring. Uppe-left: Access to the app
Fig. 9. Interface. User register section. information. Lower-left: Log out

Fig. 13. Brassica menu access.

Fig. 10. Interface. User login section.

B. Interface performance
The interface performance is presented by a set of menus
to access to the urban garden information provided by the
embedded system, as presented in the Figures 14 to 16.
In the Figures 13 and 14 is presented the first interface
for each option. The left icon presents the information about
environmental conditions and the right icon presents the soil
conditions and the exit option as is shown in the Figures 15
and 16.
Fig. 14. Lactuca menu access.
In descending order, in the left side is presented information
about environmental humidity, temperature, luminosity and
CO2 variables, and in the right side is presented crop’s
conditions as location, soil moisture and temperature, and an
exit option.

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Fig. 15. Brassica menu access. Options for the user.

Fig. 19. Environmental luminosity for Lactuca crops.

Fig. 16. Lactuca menu access. Options for the user.

C. System performance
Operating together the embedded system with the user inter-
face, the observed results for the Lactuca crops are presented
in the Figures 17 to 24. The Brassica crops state is presented
in the same way with their respective information.
Fig. 20. Environmental CO2 for Lactuca crops.

Fig. 17. Environmental humidity for Lactuca crops.

Fig. 21. Crop proximity for Lactuca crops.

Fig. 18. Environmental temperature for Lactuca crops.

Fig. 22. Soil moisture for Lactuca crops tested by the first sensor.

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Fig. 23. Soil moisture for Lactuca crops tested by the second sensor.
Fig. 24. Soil temperature for Lactuca crops.
IV. C ONCLUSIONS
A low cost and low consumption pilot system for measure-
ment, monitor and automatic irrigation was performed, using
open source and IoT Tecnology; and it was implemented at
the UPS’s urban garden. The system is constituted by three
subsystems: mechanical (physical and motor support), elec-
tronic (sensors and actuators) and communication (web/mobile
application).
The communication proccess was carried out in two phases,the
first one acts on the IoT node communicating the sensors to
the processor through I2C and ADC protocols, and communi-
cating the node to a LAN using TCP/IP, and the last one links
the proposal to the Internet in real time using WiFi technology
applied to the LAN, interconnecting the pilot system with the
network by means of a star topology.
Each measurement was taken five times at 2-second intervals,
with a sampling time of 10 seconds per station and then
an average of each variable was obtained, guaranteeing the
accuracy and precision of the values in the acquired data. Only
the average data of each measured variable is stored in the
database server.
Communication tests between pilot-server and client-server
were performed continuously by sending data from the im-
plemented system to the database server and sending HTTP
requests on the information from the user interface in the
developed mobile application to the web server.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the The-
matic Network: RiegoNets (CYTED project 514RT0486) and
PLATANO project from Universidad Politécnica Salesiana,
Cuenca, Ecuador.
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