Automated monitoring system and control for cultivations hydroponics

Abstract

In hydroponics, the soil is not needed to support production, and instead, nutritious substrates or aqueous solutions are used to support plant development. Recently, hydroponic crop automation has been initiated by developing hardware and software that allows the monitoring and control of crops and storing data obtained from sensor readings using the Internet of Things (IoT). This allows some cultural practices, such as plant fertilization, to be carried out just at the right time. This research project proposes a prototype of hydroponic culture NFT (Nutrient Film Technique), which will be automated and monitored to collect information from the water with the mixed nutrient solution, which will be carried out an analysis of variables such as temperature, EC, pH; depending on the plant to be cultivated, given that each plant deals with different variables for its satisfactory growth. The prototype was made with sensors of the brand DFRobot. The programming of the sensors and the board was obtained from examples on the same page of the sensors using the Arduino IDE  based on C++. This research shows us an alternative to global famine and IOT overpopulation.