IoT for Plant Sensing and Watering Using Arduino

Adé Kolade, Andie Veeder, Nicole Luna

Mentor: Akhila Mallavarapu

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This material is based upon work supported by the IoT4Ag Engineering Research Center funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under NSF Cooperative Agreement Number EEC-1941529.  Any opinions, findings and conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s), and do not necessarily reflect those of the NSF.

IoT4Ag

JULY 28, 2021

REU PRESENTATION

Objective

Goal:

Learn and implement Arduino-based sensing and control for automated plant sensing and watering

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JULY 28, 2021

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Automatic Watering Demo

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JULY 28, 2021

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Sensors Overview

This program was created for a 3.3V Arduino board (MKR1000). It collects various data about a plant's health and automatically waters the soil when determined to be dry.

Soil Moisture Sensor

Temperature

Phototransistor

Pump

Humidity

Relay

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JULY 28, 2021

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ThingSpeak - IoT Analytics Platform

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JULY 28, 2021

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ThingSpeak Automated Email

Automatic Email

• Plant was watered
• Plant was not watered
• No data was gathered
• Indicates an error

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JULY 28, 2021

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Lessons Learned

• Limited knowledge of Arduino
• Some relays didn’t work
• LiPo batteries and board had mismatched power terminals
• Pump needs to be soldered to jumper wires
• MKR1000 disconnected from wifi

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Summary

• Future Work
• Include CO2 sensor
• Instructions write up
• K-12 Outreach
• Develop hands on, collaborative activities to get younger generations excited about STEM
• Degree of difficulty will vary with age range (Ex. elementary, junior high, high school, etc.)
• Future IoT4Ag REUs
• Great group activity
• Develops Arduino skills

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IoT4Ag

JULY 28, 2021

REU PRESENTATION