IoT Platform-Based Sprinkler for Potato Plants

Maksy Sendiang, Anthoinete Waroh and Anthonius Manginsela

Manado State Polythectnic, Buha, Kec. Mapanget, Kota Manado, Sulawesi Utara, Indonesia

Keywords: Potato, Soil Moisture, ESP32, Thingsboard.

Abstract: In order to develop successfully, potato plants require the right amount of soil moisture. Manually watering

plants frequently causes excess or insufficient water to affect the plants, resulting in growth failure. Plant

sprinklers that operate automatically are the answer to this issue. An ESP32 microcontroller serves as the

controller, together with a number of sensors, including an ultrasonic sensor, a soil moisture sensor, and a

real-time clock. This device is connected to the IoT platform e.g thingsboard, in order to monitor and see the

sensor status. This device appears to function as predicted based on test results from many scenarios.

1 INTRODUCTION

Plants will take up enough water from the soil to

support their growth. The plants will wither if the soil

is too dry and its moisture level falls too low. Similar

to the last example, too much water in the soil will

lower oxygen levels and trigger root respiration,

which reduces root volume and raises resistance. to

produce harmful chemicals and carry water and

nutrients through the roots. Water must therefore be

provided in the proper quantity because it actually

promotes plant growth (Sitti Nur Farida et al, 2014).

The task of watering plants is done in an effort to

preserve the water content of the soil, which serves as

a reservoir for plant growth. Due to the fact that it is

typically done by hand, watering plants is one of the

mundane and routine tasks. Because sprinklers only

rely on visual abilities to determine the amount of

water provided to plants, manually watering plants

has challenges. Additionally, carelessness elements

cannot be avoided and they all frequently affect plants

over time by depriving them of water or even

overwatering them. The incorrect technique or

method of watering plants nearly always has an

impact on factors that determine the failure of a

plant's growth (M. Irsyam, 2019). Excessive watering

will cause the plants being looked after to become

sickly and incapable of thriving.

One of the cultivated plants that can thrive

between 500 and 3000 meters above sea level in

tropical and subtropical regions is the potato. Potatoes

can grow best in the tropics at a height of 1300 meters

above sea level. For potato plants to thrive, soil must

be rich in nutrients, loose, and well-drained. Potato

plants grow well in loose clay, silt, or sand dust with

a pH range of 4.5 to 8. The pH range between 5 and

6.5 is ideal for potato plant growth and yield; with a

pH below 5, potatoes will produce poor-quality tubers

that are vulnerable to scurvy. Potato plants'

development and yield are impacted by the climate.

Temperatures between 15 and 20 degrees Celsius,

enough sunlight, and 80% to 90% humidity are ideal

for potato growth. (Nugraeni Ratna Widiastuti, 2020).

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 ESP32

A single 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth combination

chip called the ESP32 was created using TSMC's

ultra-low-power 40 nm technology. It is made with

the best RF and power performance in mind, and it

exhibits resilience, adaptability, and dependability in

a number of power scenarios. The ESP32 is made for

Internet-of-Things (IoT) and wearable electronics

applications. According to the ESP32 datasheet, it has

all the cutting-edge attributes of low-power

processors, such as fine-grained clock gating,

numerous power modes, and dynamic power scaling

(ESP32 datasheet).

With about 20 external components, ESP32 is a

highly integrated solution for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

Sendiang, M., Waroh, A. and Manginsela, A.

IoT Platform-Based Sprinkler for Potato Plants.

DOI: 10.5220/0011710900003575

In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Applied Science and Technology on Engineering Science (iCAST-ES 2022), pages 37-41

ISBN: 978-989-758-619-4; ISSN: 2975-8246

IoT applications. An antenna switch, RF balun, power

amplifier, low-noise receive amplifier, filters, and

power management modules are all integrated into

the ESP32. The ESP32 Module's physical form is as

follows.

Figure 1: ESP32.

2.2 Soil Moisture Sensor

Soil moisture sensor measures the volumetric content

of water inside the soil and gives us the moisture level

as output. The sensor is equipped with both analog

and digital output. The soil moisture sensor consists

of two probes which are used to measure the

volumetric content of water. The two probes allow the

current to pass through the soil and then it gets the

resistance value to measure the moisture value.

When there is more water, the soil will conduct

more electricity which means that there will be less

resistance. Therefore, the moisture level will be

higher. Dry soil conducts electricity poorly, so when

there will be less water, then the soil will conduct less

electricity which means that there will be more

resistance. Therefore, the moisture level will be

lower. The soil moisture sensor has four pins : VCC

(power), A0 (analog output), D0 (digital output),

GND (ground).

Figure 2: Soil Moisture Sensor.

2.3 DS3231 RTC Module

The DS3231 is an integrated temperature-

compensated crystal oscillator (TCXO) and crystal-

based low-cost I2C real-time clock (RTC). When the

gadget's main power supply is interrupted, the device

has a battery input and continues to retain precise

time.

The RTC maintains seconds, minutes, hours, day,

date, month, and year information. The date at the end

of the month is automatically adjusted for months

with fewer than 31 days, including corrections for

leap year. The clock operates in either the 24-hour or

12-hour format with an active-low AM/PM indicator.

Two programmable time-of-day alarms and a

programmable square-wave output are provided.

A precision temperature-compensated voltage

reference and comparator circuit monitor the status of

VCC to detect power failures, to provide a reset

output, and to automatically switch to the backup

supply when necessary.

Figure 3: DS3231 RTC Module.

2.4 Thingsboard

An open-source Internet of Things platform called

ThingsBoard is used for data collecting, processing,

visualization, and device management. It offers a

ready-to-use on-premises or cloud IoT solution to

enable server-side infrastructure for various IoT

applications (Aghenta LO and Iqbal MT, 2019).

ThingsBoard provides 100 percent support for

standard IoT protocols for device connectivity,

including MQTT, CoAP, and HTTP(S), and it

presently supports three diﬀerent database options:

SQL, NoSQL, and Hybrid databases. The

ThingsBoard platform uses these databases to store

entities (such as devices, assets, dashboards, users,

alarms, customers, etc.), and telemetry data (attributes,

time-series sensor readings, statistics, events, etc.)

(Ismail AA, Hamza HS and Kotb AM,2018).

ThingsBoard has two diﬀerent editions, the

Community Edition, which is free and wholly open

source, and the Professional Edition, which has more

advanced features. In this research, the Community

Edition is used. This Community Edition is open

source, and is available free-of-charge on both the

ThingsBoard oﬃcial website and on GitHub software

development platform (Aghenta LO and Iqbal

MT,2019). The architecture of thingsboard is shown

below.

iCAST-ES 2022 - International Conference on Applied Science and Technology on Engineering Science

Figure 4: Thingsboard Architecture.

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Working Principle for Device

The timing of the application of the potato sprinkler

must be determined according to the environment in

which it will be employed. To detect if the system or

equipment is at watering time or not, a real time clock

(RTC) sensor will read the local time. In the morning

at 6 am to 8 am and afternoon at 5 pm to 6 pm are the

times in question for watering. The soil moisture

sensor will read the soil moisture value with a value

range of 0 to 1033 if the system is at the time of

watering.

If the soil is dry, the system will check the water

reservoir to see if there is any water there. If there is

enough water there, the system will open the pump to

send water to the sprinkler, which will spray water

into a designated area.. The following diagram

depicts the process flowchart for this system.

Figure 5: Flowchart system.

Finally, through the IoT platform (thingsboard).,

modifications in the status of the system's equipment

will be seen.

3.2 Block Diagram

The following block diagram shows how the parts of

the IoT platform-based potato sprinkler are related to

one another.

Figure 6: Block Diagram.

This tools three primary parts are input

components, control components, and output

components, as shown in the image above. The sensor

equipment that accepts physical quantities and

transforms them into electrical signals makes up the

input component. The sensors employed include soil

moisture sensors, temperature and humidity sensors

(DHT11), ultrasonic sensors, and real-time clock

sensors. An ESP32 microcontroller, which has been

fitted with a WIFI module, is being used as the control

component. It will produce output in the form of ON-

OFF watering pump, ON-OFF water tank filling

pump, water level in the tank, and information on the

state of the soil moisture. Utilizing the IoT platform,

specifically thingsboard, the status of the output

components and the data they provide are viewed.

3.3 Hardware Design

The following image depicts the hardware design of

the tool that was constructed.

Figure 7: Hardware Design.

The analysis of the needs for this sprinkler component

is as shown in the following table:

IoT Platform-Based Sprinkler for Potato Plants

Table 1: Kebutuhan hardware.

Component Specification Function

ESP32

• Dual-core Tensilica LX6

microprocessor

• 520 kB internal SRAM

• Integrated 802.11 BGN

WiFi transceiver

• 2.2 to 3.6V operating range,

32 GPIO

Board

controller

Soil

Moisture

YL69

• Operating Voltage: 3.3V to

5V DC

• Operating Current: 15mA

• Output Digital/ Analog - 0V

to 5V

Soil

moisture

sensor

DHT11

• Operating voltage: 3.5V

hingga 5.5V

• Operating current: 0.3mA

• Output: serial data,

• Temperature range : -40 ° C

hingga 80 ° C

• Moisture range: 0% hingga

100%

Read

temperature

and air

moisture

Relay 2

channel

• Operating voltage : 5V DC

• Operating current : -+40mA

(20mA/channel)

• Trigger voltage : Low Level

Setting : 0~1.5V DC High

Level Setting : 3~5V DC

• Arus trigger : 2~5mA

Kontak Beban : NO dan NC

Max 250V AC 10A atau

30V DC 10A Dimensi :

50 x 41 x 17.5 mm

Electric

switch for

pump and

sprinkler

RTC

DS3231

• Operating voltage : 2.3V –

5.5V

• Operating current 500nA

• Maximum voltage on SDA ,

SCL : VCC + 0.3V

• Operating temperature : -

45ºC to +80ºC

Updating

date and

time

periodically

Ultrasonic

HC-SR04

• Voltage : 5V DC

• Static current : < 2mA

• Output level : 5v – 0V

• Sensor angle : < 15 derajat

• Detectable distance: 2cm –

450cm (4.5m)

• Acuracy : up to 0.3cm

(3mm)

measure

distance

4 RESULT

4.1 Determination of Soil Moisture

Limits for Watering

The soil moisture limit is a parameter used to

determine when a HIGH or LOW signal is sent to the

watering pump relay. The results of soil moisture

testing done in potato plant pots under various

weather and air temperature conditions are displayed

in the following table:

Table 2: Soil moisture under various soil conditions.

Condition of potato plants

in pots

Air

temperature

Moisture

value

Plants are not watered for 2

C 907

Plants are not watered for 2

days

C 829

It rained last ni

ht 28

C 735

It rained an hour a

o 31

C 356

The plants have been hit by

the rain

C 294

The soil moisture limit is established at a value of 670

based on the data in the table above and a visual

inspection of the condition of the soil.

4.2 Pengujian Fungsionalitas Simulasi

Dan Prototype

Figure 8: System Simulation.

The simulation of potato sprinklers was made using a

wokwi software which is software for simulating

embedded systems and IoT (Figure 8). The prototype

model is as shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9: Sistem Prototype.

Solenoi

Water

Watering

Ultrasonic

RPC

Soil

Listing code

iCAST-ES 2022 - International Conference on Applied Science and Technology on Engineering Science

In the simulation above, the soil moisture sensor is

represented by a potentiometer because the Wokwi

software does not provide this sensor feature.

Solenoid describes a watering device controlled by a

relay. The following scenarios were created to test the

feature, and the outcomes of each scenario were

shown graphically on the thingsboard:

• Scenario 1; soil moisture 502 (soil wet due to rain)

air temperature 300C. The potato plants are not

being watered in this situation.

Figure 10: Scenario 1.

• Scenario 2; soil moisture 802 (dry soil) air

temperature 30

C. In this condition, watering

occurs because the water in the water tank is still

sufficient ( >250L).

Figure 11: Scenario 2.

• Scenario 3; soil moisture 802 (dry soil) air

temperature 30

C. There is no watering and the

water pump is ON because there is only about

250L of water in the tank.

Figure 12: Scenario 3.

The three scenarios can be run and visualized on the

thingsboard platform so well that it can be said that

this system has worked as planned.

5 CONCLUSIONS

Based on the scenario created, the autonomous potato

sprinkler has been put through testing. The findings

demonstrate that the device performs as planned. The

test results are shown using the IoT platform

(thingsboard) and show the current state of all used

devices. This device is highly helpful since it can

reduce the need for labor while correctly monitoring

water use.

REFERENCES

Aghenta LO and Iqbal MT (2019) Low-Cost, Open Source

IoT-Based SCADA System Design Using Thinger.IO

and ESP32 Thing. Electronics 8: 822

ESP32 datasheet, http://www.espressif.com

Ismail AA, Hamza HS and Kotb AM (2018) Performance

Evaluation of Open Source IoT Platforms. 2018 IEEE

Global Conference on Internet of Things (GCIoT) 1–5.

M. Irsyam and A. Tanjung, “Sistem Otomasi Penyiraman

Tanaman Berbasis Telegram,” Sigma Teknika, vol. 2,

no. 1, pp. 81-94, 2019.

Nugraeni Ratna Widiastuti, Ratna Ika Putri , Hariyadi

Singgih,” Kontrol Suhu dan Kelembaban Tanah

dengan Metode Fuzzy dan Logic pada Tanaman

Kentang,” Jurnal Elkolindo,Juli 2020,Vol 07,No.2

Suhardi Sitti Nur Faridah, Abdul Waris. 2014. Kinerja

Sistem Kontrol Kadar Air Tanah Pada Operasi Sistem

Irigasi Sprinkler. J Agri Techno. Mei 2014 Vol 6. No

2:1–9.

IoT Platform-Based Sprinkler for Potato Plants