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Design and Development of Solar Powered Automatic Grain Dryer for Storage

Conference Paper · August 2019

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 Design and Development of Solar Powered
Automatic Grain Dryer for Storage
Abstract— This paper presents the design and development
of an automatic solar powered grain dryer used to remove the
moisture content from grains, post harvesting. The drying is
achieved by allowing the heat from heat chamber to flow on to
the conveyor belt with the help of exhaust fans present in the
heat chamber. The grains are layered evenly on the conveyer
belts upon which the heated air is passed to extract the moisture
from the grains. Arduino Uno (ATmega328P) along with the
appropriate sensors are used to monitor and control the
moisture content, speed of the motor and temperature of the
heating chamber. Based on the moisture content present in the
grains, the sensor sends the control signal to the controller.
Thus, the speed of the conveyer belt is adjusted accordingly to
maintain required moisture content in the grains, which is
ideally required for storage. The prototype of the system is
developed and powered using solar photovoltaic energy
generated from 10W solar panel in conjunction with buck-boost
converter and charge controller. The results shows a good
response in removing the initial moisture content from 30% to
14% from the grains without altering their nutrition values.
Keywords— Arduino Uno, charge controller circuit , DHT11 ,
moisture content , conveyer belts , heating chamber , moisture
sensor , L298n motor driver IC
I. INTRODUCTION
India being a predominately agricultural based country, where
in 70% of the population are farmers and practice agriculture
for a living [1], technological advancement should improvise
in order to reduce the work load of a farmer and make their
work more mechanized and easy .
Agriculture serves to be the backbone of Indian economy [2].
It is very important to improve the efficiency and productivity
of agriculture by simultaneously providing safe cultivation to
the farmers [3]. Drying is the process of removing the
moisture content from the grains of the crops after they have
been harvested[4], after harvesting grains usually contain
about 25 to 30% moisture content which is not ideal to store
them as they may led to discoloration, spoilage, encourage
development of molds, and increase the likelihood of attack
from pests[5]. It may lead to decrease the germination rate in
case of rice seed [6]. Hence, it is important to dry grains as
soon as possible after harvesting— ideally within 24 hours
[7]. Delays in drying, incomplete drying or ineffective drying
will reduce grain quality and result in losses [8].
There are plenty of applications using automatic grain dryer.
The crops can be harvested at any time of the year and be
stored for a long period of time. Drying the grains to the
optimum value of moisture content will increases the shelf
life of the grain tremendously. The burden and work load on
the farmers will be reduced drastically and they can utilize
this time elsewhere. Using an automated system of drying,
the drying process can be completed within few hours [9].
Paddy contains about 25-30% of moisture content after it is
been harvested [10]. To preserve/store them for a longer time,
they need to be dried to 14% of moisture [11]. It also reduces
harvesting losses, including head shattering and cracked
kernels. Further it helps in reducing the dependency on
weather conditions for harvest and drying [12]. Which in turn
allows the farmer to spend more time on other activities post-
harvest.
There are few conventional methods exists for grain drying
includes solar bubble dryer, Layer drying, Natural air flow
drying with low temperature and continuous air flow drying.
Mechanical drying of agricultural products is an energy
consuming operation in the post-harvesting technology.
Greater emphasis is given to solar energy sources to
overcome the shortages of fossil fuels [13]. A new natural
convection solar dryer consisting of a solar air heater and a
drying chamber was developed [14]. The initial moisture
content cannot be effectively dried using natural air flow
drying as it has a low temperature. It also requires electric
power supply at each bin for dryer fan motors. This leads to
increase in capital cost and also required skilled and
experienced labor [15].
The most common problem with all these methods of drying
is the fact that these are very old and traditional methods and
they consume a lot of space and time, they are weather
dependent, initial cost is very high and medium or small scale
farmers cannot afford it. To overcome the above said
problems, a new solar powered automatic grain dryer is been
designed.
II. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT
The purpose of storage is to provide the dried grain with
protection against insects, molds, rodents and birds, and to
prevent moisture from re-entering the grain. But, if the drying
is not done properly, there will be losses no matter how good
the storage is.
Technological advancements has brought about a lot of
changes in our day to day life and we have been immensely
grateful for that. Similarly, the agricultural sector has been
growing everyday either in its production or in the
technological aspect.
Time has always been the greatest enemy and shortage of
time has led to many problems faced by every individual on
this planet. In order to reduce the time of the farmer post-
harvest, the proposed idea is been implemented. The motor
controlled conveyer belts made out of netted material is
perfect in order to lay the grains conveniently and also for the
proper penetration of hot air. It uses an Arduino Uno
Microcontroller for the smart controlling action which needs
to be implemented for the drying process.
Natural sun drying technique would use the heat from the sun
rays to dry the grains for a period of 10-15 days, which gets
very tedious and monotonous. Making use of the same
principle, in this paper it use the heat generated from a heating
coil along with the exhaust fan, which thereby produces heat
required to dry the grains as per the specifications and
standard which is desire to.
 III. DESIGN OVERVIEW
The main objective of this paper is to make the work of
farmers easy, faster and high efficient in grain drying, post-
harvest for storage. The designed mechanism takes less time
to dry up grain using solar photovoltaic based drying as
compared to traditional drying process. It also aims to reduce
intensive labor experienced by the farmers.
The components used to solve the problem includes the
following: solar panel, buck boost converter, charge
controller circuit, Johnson DC geared motor (10rpm),
Arduino Uno, temperature and humidity sensor (DHT11),
moisture sensor, 5V dual channel relay, L298N H Bridge
motor driver circuit, heating elements, DC fans, Conveyer
belts, bread board and jumper wires.
Functional block diagram:
A simple, solar powered automatic grain dryer is designed to
dry the grains effectively and in a fast manner. The dryer has
a simplistic architecture which makes assemble and
disassemble of the parts easier. The functional block diagram
of the dryer is shown in Figure 1. Working of each block is
explained in this section.
The power circuit system comprises of solar panel, controller,
battery charging circuit and battery. The Solar Panel will
provide electricity to charge the battery during day time,
which in turn is used to power the system. The charging of
the battery is controlled by a solar charge controller.
Figure 1: Functional block diagram
Control circuit working:
From the battery, the voltage is stepped down to 5 V using
buck converter and is then given to the Arduino and DC
motors as power supply. The conveyer belt is made to rotat at
a very low rpm of 10, which is achieved by the Johnson DC
geared motor.
The ardunio is the main microcontroller used in dryer, the
dryer system contains temperature and humidity sensor
(DHT11) to sense the temperature of the heating chamber,
moisture sensor(FC-28) to check the moisture contect
presener in th grains, heating coil to make the chamber hot,
DC Fans to push the hot air on to the conveyor belts, L298N
H brigde motor driver circuit to control the speed of the DC
geared motors.
The Inputs to the Ardunio is given by all the 3 sensors namely
temperature and humidity Sensor (DHT11), moisture
sensor(FC-28) 2 in number.
Temperature sensor control working :
The temperatue sensor senses the temperature of the heating
inside the heating chamber, keeping a range of allowable
temperatures of the heating chamber, which is 35°𝐶 𝑡𝑜 42°𝐶,
the exhaust fans are designed to run only in this range of
allowable temperature which helps to blow the hot air on to
the conveyor belts. The dual channel relay module will cut
the power supply to the DC fans when the temperature
detected is out of the range.
Moisture sensor control working:
Another input to the ardunio uno is the moisture sensor which
detects the moisture from the wet harvested grains which are
evenly layered on the convyer belts.
Post harvest grains usually contain a moisture content of
about 25-30%, which is not the ideal moisture content to store
these grains. Therefore, after drying the grains using dryer,
the moisture content comes down to 12-14%, which is ideally
enough to store these grains for a period of 6-12 months.
Design of the proposed system in AutoCAD:
The model of the dryer shown in Figure 2, was designed in
Auto Cad software. To understand the design aspects and
dimensions of all the hardware components involved in the
project. The outer covering dimensions is of size 4ft x 3ft,
whereas each conveyer belt is of dimension 1m .The control
panel is placed on the extreme top right corner of the project,
so that all the wiring and components can be placed and
functioned from a single place .There are totally 6 DC fans
placed in a heating duct along with 5 heating element coils,
so as to provide heated air to the grain to dry easily and
quickly.
Figure 2: Design of the proposed system in AutoCAD
IV. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
The hardware structure is designed as shown in the Figure 2,
the conveyer belts are made using netted material to provide
flexibility and holes to penetrate the air through the grains
and conveyor belt. Arduino Uno is coded based on the
requirements and connections to various components. The
detailed explanation about the experimental setup of dryer is
explained in this section.
A. Interfacing of Arduino Uno , Temperature & humidity
sensor (DHT11), relay and DC fans:
Pin A0 of Arduino is connected to the data pin of the DHT11
temperature and humidity sensor, VCC and GND pins are
given to the supply. The relay module is connected to the A1
and A2 pins of the Arduino and the DC fans are connected
internally to the relay so provide the switching actions.
B. Heating Coil Control
To regulate the speed of the fan, the temperature sensor
(DHT11) and moisture sensor are defined as inputs to the
Arduino Uno at pin number A0 and A1 respectively.
Taking in the temperature and moisture values, the Arduino
thus defines a control strategy. It is a crucial step to control
the speed of the fan and the heating coil temperature as it may
over dry the grains or under dry them resulting in a loss and
spoilage of grains .
After a lot of trials and errors, the temperature value was set
accordingly and considering the fact the moisture content in
the grains should be in the range of 12-14 %, these values are
predefined and set.
C. Interfacing of Arduino uno, Moisture sensor, L298N H
bridge motor driver IC :
Pin A2 of Arduino board is connected to the data pin of the
moisture sensor, VCC and GND pins are given to the supply.
The L298N H Bridge motor driver IC is connected to the pins
8, 9 and 10 of the Arduino, and the motor is internally
supplied and connected to the L298N motor driver IC.
D. Motor Driver and Moisture Content Control
In order to regulate the speed of the conveyer belt motor, the
moisture sensors value is the key parameter which gives input
to the Arduino Uno.
As stated in the introduction, the moisture content which is
ideal for storing the grains for a period of 6-12 months is
about 12 - 14%, thereby the band range for the moisture
content of the grains in the program is 12 - 14%. The speed
of the motor is controlled as follows:
If the moisture content of the grains is lesser than 15%, the
Johnson DC motor runs at half its speed of 5 rpm.
If the moisture content of the grains is greater than 11%, the
Johnson DC motor runs at full speed of 10rpm.
Figure 3: Control system panel
The entire control circuitry is interfaced and placed on a
suitable platform and attached to the top right corner of the
outer enclosure model of the model.
There are 2 Arduino Uno’s are used to control the entire
circuit. The connections to Arduino Uno–1 comes from the
moisture sensor-2 and the L298N motor driver IC and bread
board, these connections forms the motor driver control
circuitry along with the moisture sensor.
The connections to Arduino Uno–2 comes from the moisture
sensor-1, temperature and humidity sensor (DHT11), 5 V
dual channel relay module and bread board. These
connections forms the heating coil control circuitry.
V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The Figures 4 and 5, shows the consolidation of the various
outputs such as temperature, humidity and moisture contents
obtained from the Arduino Uno serial monitor. The readings
are tabulated after several trial and error using different
moisture content from different grains namely wheat, paddy,
rice, ragi, lentils, millets and corn. The serial monitor shows
results at regular intervals of time.
Figure 4: Results 1
Figure 5: Results 2
The prototype model of a solar powered automatic grain
dryer shows that the farmers can be at ease and the drying
process is completed within few hours. The designed system
uses a conveyer belt system on which the grain will be
layered evenly and dried thoroughly with the help of a heating
coil and fan attached above the conveyer belt. The heated air
will pull out the moisture from the grains and make them dry
to the desired level which is ideally required for storage.
Having successfully developed the solar power automatic
grain dryer system, it was subjected to various grains with
different moisture contents and thereby they were dried using
the system to verify the optimal working of the system. The
values displayed in the serial monitor of Arduino Uno was
validated by the grain moisture meter to ensure that were no
disparities with the displayed value. Table 1 shows the
recorded readings of moisture content, temperature and farmers can gather at a particular place and dry their grains
humidity at various voltage levels. effectively.
The moisture sensor used is a simple Arduino compatible soil
Table 1: Results consolidation moisture sensor, there are few grain Moisture meters
Sl . Voltage Moisture Temperature Humidity available in the market which are expensive, such grain
No (AC) In Content of Chamber of moisture meters can be implemented in the future.
(V) in % in deg C chamber To have a better heating system, a heating chamber can be
in % designed where in heating coils are with large capacity DC
1 180 3.29 41 24 fans, to dry the grains much faster.
2 160 4.40 41 24
3 150 9.29 34.20 38
4 140 12.81 34.20 38 VII. REFERENCES
5 130 13.00 34.20 38
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