AUTOMATED GREEN HOUSE SYSTEM
BY
GROUP NO. 66
REAL TIME EMBEDDED SYSTEM
DEPARTMENT OF NETWORKS
COLLEGE OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SCIENCES
A Project Proposal Submitted to the college of
Computing and Information sciences for the Study Leading to a Project in
Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree of Bachelor
of Science in Software Engineering of Makerere University.
Supervisor
Mr. Odongo
Steven.
Department of
Networks
School of
Computing and Informatics Technology, Makerere University
sodongo@cis.mak.ac.ug,
+256-775-199511, +256-702-102999
October 2014.
GROUP MEMBERSHIP:
|
#
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Names
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Registration
Number
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Student Number
|
Signature
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1
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BONGOMIN
MICHEAL
|
11/U/16336/EVE
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211008202
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|
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2
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SSEMAGANDA
ALLAN PAYNE
|
11/U/16392/EVE
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211012215
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3
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KALUNDA
DERRICK
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11/U/16413/EVE
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211015118
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4
|
OTIM
PAUL
|
11/U/16306/EVE
|
211007769
|
|
APPROVAL:
This proposal has been submitted for examination with
the approval of our project supervisor.
Supervisor
Mr. Odongo Steven
Signature: ……………………………………………………………………………………………….
Date:
……………………………...........................................................................................................
1.0 Introduction
1.0 Introduction
With
use of modern-day technology, automated greenhouses have become widely popular
among professional greenhouse caretakers and hobbyists alike. With the advent
of newly affordable technologies such as microcontrollers and environmental
sensors, engineers and hobbyists have devised ways to cut plant maintenance to
a minimum. While some automated greenhouses require little to no additional
caretaking, others are simplistic and control only limited functions such as
watering and timed lighting. By allowing as much automation as possible, the
Smart Greenhouse will reduce the amount of time spent caretaking for plants,
and eliminates worry when a user is away for long durations.
The
Smart Greenhouse control unit will allow the user will stray from the tedious
job of tending to the nutritional needs of plants. Under one interface, one can
monitor important plant growth factors, such as lighting, soil moisture,
relative humidity, and temperature, as well as monitor incoming power sources
to be used to operate greenhouse equipment. The autonomous system will nurture
the plants without the user being present, under a pre-set range of optimal
conditions, while having the ability to run more efficiently off of alternative
energy sources.
1.1 Background to the Problem
The
out-paced population growth to adequate food supply in today’s world has posed
a serious threat to the peace and stability of the global community. There are
a vast number of people living in today’s world lack access to enough food for
healthy lives. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN-FAO)
has identified 82 poor countries that face rapid population growth do not
produce enough food domestically, constrained to producing more food, and
cannot import enough to make up the deficit. More than 840 million people, with
disproportionately women and children, suffer chronic malnourishment. Each year
about 18 million people, mostly children, die from starvation, malnutrition,
and related causes. With one-third of world population lacking food now, the
UN-FAO estimates that world food production would have to double to provide
food security for 8 billion people with 6.8 billion living in developing
countries. The rate of food production in these countries continues to deteriorate
in the past century. For instance, Africa now produces nearly 30% less food per
person than it did in 1967. There are many reasons for the deterioration in
food productions in developing countries. Rapid population growth has resulted
in increasing demand for food supplies. Another serious reason is that most of
these countries already cultivated virtually all arable land. In many areas,
fertile soils are being exploited faster than they can be regenerated.
Short
supply of fresh water is another major cause for reduction in food production
in these countries.
Greenhouses
provide a unique advantage in growing food with virtually no adverse effect to
the environment. It is the only method of food production that makes use of
control of the environment. While no one can realistically expect the
substitution of natural agriculture in food production by greenhouses, they can
nevertheless alleviate the serious shortage of food in developing countries,
and also mitigate the contribution of greenhouse gases by the food industry in
affluent countries with modern technologies of clean renewable energies and
intelligent control in crop growth and operations. The proposed greenhouses can
grow food with less dependence on the expensive traditional energy sources and
can be made to be affordable to the growers in developing countries. It thus
has great potential to become a sustainable food production technology for
self-sufficiency of food for people in the developing countries, and those in
affluent countries determined to mitigate their use of fossil fuels in food
production.
1.2 Problem Statement
The
high costs involved in manually managing a greenhouse that is; hiring people to
always check, monitor and irrigate crops is inhibiting farmers from adopting
the habit of growing crops in greenhouses in Uganda today. As a result few
farmers in Uganda today are using greenhouses which in turn has led to inconsistent
and inadequate food supply during given periods/seasons of the year. This is
mainly specific to vegetables which tend to be scarce which hikes their prices
during certain seasons of the year.
1.3
Main
Objective
To
automate the management of crop growth in a greenhouse
1.4
Specific
Objectives
1.4.1
To study and
investigate the current operation and management of green houses by
agriculturalists in Uganda today and costs involved.
1.4.2
To analyze data
available on automated greenhouse crop production to see how this system will
address issues and its convenience to people who will use it.
1.4.3
To design and implement
a temperature assessment and control system in the green house.
1.4.4
To design a soil
moisture control module, which will predict and appropriately irrigate the
crops
1.4.5
To assess adequate
sunlight requirements for crops and control crop exposure.
1.4.6
To apply our knowledge
of systems analysis and design to appropriately test, validate and verify the
green house automated system.
1.4.7
To design a user manual
and deployment strategies to ensure that it is working in its intended
environment.
1.5
Scope
This
research is intended to cover the agricultural sector specifically crop
husbandry in green houses. This is to boost crop productivity despite the harsh
factors that exist in the natural environment. For example
The
system is to be used in the automatic management of conditions such as
temperature, humidity, irrigation in a green house. The green houses under
study are those found in East Africa and specifically in Uganda, since the
climatic conditions in these areas are almost the same.
The
user will be provided with information about the state of conditions in the
green house. This information will be relayed in form of a user interface which
the user will also be able to control and adjust values accordingly which will
in turn change the state (conditions) of the green house appropriately.
1.6
Significance
Once
implemented the Smart Green House system will significantly reduce on the
number of man power or labor required in the daily management of a green house.
It
will also enable the farmer to know the status of the green house but also be
able to control the state of the green house with out necessarily moving to the
green house.
The
system will also be able to check on the wastage of resources like unnecessary
watering of the plants in the green house. This will be done in such a way that
the system will have sensors in the ground that will check the amount of water
in the soil and also do the irrigation accordingly.
2.0 Literature
Review
This
section consists of a critical review of research work from journals, internet
sources and other projects already done which is related to the subject area as
well as an analysis of existing literature on the subject with the objective of
revealing contributions, weaknesses and gaps.
The objective of our research is to examine and explore various
concepts that intertwine with the proposed project - the Smart Greenhouse. In
this project, we will cover: plant growth, environmental control methods, power
distribution and efficiency, and control units. Each of these topics will be
reviewed through related research and publications. However, they should give
reasonable insight on the feasibility of certain aspects of the design, and
provide new overall ideas to the project.
2.1 Greenhouse
Cultivation and Advancements
Emperor
Tiberius of Rome (42 BCE–37 CE) is thought to be the first person to utilize a
structure that can be considered a greenhouse.
He did this to be able to eat his favorite food all year long, many
guess that this food was the humble cucumber, this love of food started a new
wave of agriculture and it is this specific form of agriculture that this paper
looks to examine. [1]
The
first thing to decide when faced with designing a greenhouse is to consider the
structure you are going to be using.
There are four different categories of greenhouses each with their own
benefits and drawbacks to consider:
2.1.1 Lean-to green house
A lean-to greenhouse is a half
greenhouse, split along the peak of the roof, or ridge line (Figure 2A),
Lean-tos are useful where space is limited to a width of approximately seven to
twelve feet, and they are the least expensive structures. The ridge of the
lean-to is attached to a building using one side and an existing doorway, if
available. Lean-tos are close to available electricity, water and heat. The
disadvantages include some limitations on space, sunlight, ventilation, and temperature
control. The height of the supporting wall limits the potential size of the
lean-to. The wider the lean-to, the higher the supporting wall must be.
Temperature control is more difficult because the wall that the greenhouse is
built on may collect the sun's heat while the translucent cover of the
greenhouse may lose heat rapidly. The lean-to should face the best direction
for adequate sun exposure. Finally, consider the location of windows and doors
on the supporting structure and remember that snow, ice, or heavy rain might
slide off the roof or the house onto the structure.
2.1.2 Even-span green house
An even-span is a full-size structure
that has one gable end attached to another building (Figure 2B). It is usually
the largest and most costly option, but it provides more usable space and can
be lengthened. The even-span has a better shape than a lean-to for air
circulation to maintain uniform temperatures during the winter heating season.
An even-span can accommodate two to three benches for growing crops.
2.1.3 Window-mounted
green house
A window-mounted greenhouse can be
attached on the south or east side of a house. This glass enclosure gives space
for conveniently growing a few plants at relatively low cost (Figure 2D). The
special window extends outward from the house a foot or so and can contain two
or three shelves.
2.1.4 Freestanding
Structures
Freestanding greenhouses are separate
structures; they can be set apart from other buildings to get more sun and can
be made as large or small as desired (Figure 2C). A separate heating system is
needed, and electricity and water must be installed.”[2]
2.2 Variants of Green
House Systems
The
green house technology is not a complete new invention because from the
research we carried out; it shows that there are a few aspects that have been
previously developed though not with the interest of a green house. A similar
system is the Automatic Pest Control and Irrigation System 2014 developed by
BSE14-1. According to this group, this system works as an automatic pest
controller that also does irrigation.
In
conclusion, most of the studies carried out on similar systems indicate that
they have successfully performed to their expectations which indicate that the
proposed system of automating the management of a green house poses more
chances of success.
2.3 Conclusion
Because of the design constraints of our
project we are going to be employ the freestanding structure greenhouse
model. This structure is the most
suitable option for a small scale greenhouse and the cheapest per square foot
option.
The next item to consider is the building
materials themselves, there are many options to consider when it comes to
materials but a thorough explanation of each material is beyond the scope of
this paper. Instead the focus will be
glass, this is the most traditional material and for this project it happens to
be more cost effective. Glass also
offers a more stable structure and is nearly 100% efficient at allowing light
through to our plants. It won’t discolor
over time like the plastic options will and it offers an all around nice feel
and look.
And
finally for this specific project, we will consider the growth of flowers in
the smart green house. These flowers have been chosen for this project due to a
few different factors such as the conditions in which they grow.
3.0
Methodology
Three
parts have been included under this topic; Design architecture is the main
block function for the proposed design while the hardware specification will detail
out the components involved in this design for the sensor component until the
microcontroller selection. Software development based on the proposed design
will be detailed out in the software part where the flow of the system
operation will be detailed out elaborately.
3.1
Design
Architecture.
The
system development is to start with the design architecture of the proposed
design. Transparent block diagram has been used to outline the proposed design
as shown in figure 1.
The
architecture comprises of the bread board, arduino UNO R3, and a computer as
the main components for this system. The bread board will work as an extension
to connect all the other extensions such as the sensors, then the arduino R3
will work as the controller that will run the embedded code and then the laptop
will work as the control component for the user. Light dependent resistor
(photo resistor) will be used to detect and measure the surrounding light
level. All light response or changing is measured in volts
Figure
1.Transparent block diagram of the greenhouse tech system
3.2
Data
Collection
Several
data collection methods such as use of questionnaires, direct interviews with
the people running farms with green houses are to be used to gather the
necessary qualitative and quantitative data that will aid us in the development
of this system.
We
also intend to research about the several systems in form of literature review
that have a similar aspect as the one under development. We intend to use this
information to come up with the best system to manage a green house.
4.0
References
[1]
H.S. Paris and J. Janick “What the Roman emperor Tiberius grew in his
greenhouses” Internet:
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/2_13_Janick.pdf
[April 1 2013].
[2]
“Planning and Building a Greenhouse” Internet: http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/hortcult/greenhou/building.htm
[April 2 2013].
[3]John Brittnacher*. “Growing Nepenthes” Internet:http://www.carnivorousplants.org/howto/GrowingGuides/Nepenthes.php
[April. 1, 2013].
[4]
Aaron Ellison, Nicholas Gotelli, J. Stephen Brewer, D. Liane Cochran-Stafira,
Jamie Kneitel, Thomas Miller, Anne Worley, and Regino Zamora “The Evolutionary
Ecology of Carnivorous Plants” Internet:http://www.uvm.edu/~ngotelli/manuscriptpdfs/AER2003.pdf,
[April 2, 2013].
[5]
Zabeltitz, C. von. Integrated greenhouse systems for mild climates climate
conditions, design, construction, maintenance, climate control. Berlin,
Germany: Springer, 2011.
[6]
Straten, G. van, and Willigenburg, G. van, and Henten, E. van, and Ooteghem, R.
van. Optimal control of greenhouse cultivation. Boca Raton, FL : CRC Press,
2011.
[7]
Verlodt, H., and Mougou, A., & (Ed.). International Symposium on Simple
Ventilation and Heating Methods for Greenhouses in Mild Winter Climates :
Djerba, Tozeur, Tunisia, February 28-March 6, 1988. Wageningen, Netherlands :
International Society for Horticultural Science,1988.
[8]
Bailey, B.J. Wind driven leeward ventilation in a large greenhouse. Retrieved
from http://www.actahort.org, 2000.
[9]
H. Joumaa, S. Ploix, S. Abras, G. De Oliveria, “Energy Procedia,” A MAS integrated into Home Automation
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[11]
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[12]
Gomez-Melendez, Domingo,. “Fuzzy Irrigation Greenhouse Control System Based on
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Journal of Agricultural Research. vol 6. June 2011, pp. 2544-2557. Doi:
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[13]
Nugroho, Andri. Okayasu, Takashi. Fushihara, Hajime. “Development of
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