20-12-2012, 01:11 PM
MONITOR AND CONTROL OF GREENHOUSE ENVIRONMENT
1MONITOR AND CONTROL.docx (Size: 100.02 KB / Downloads: 42)
ABSTRACT
We live in a world where everything can be controlled and operated automatically, but there are still a few important sectors in our country where automation has not been adopted or not been put to a full-fledged use, perhaps because of several reasons one such reason is cost. One such field is that of agriculture. Agriculture has been one of the primary occupations of man since early civilizations and even today manual interventions in farming are inevitable. Greenhouses form an important part of the agriculture and horticulture sectors in our country as they can be used to grow plants under controlled climatic conditions for optimum produce. Automating a greenhouse envisages monitoring and controlling of the climatic parameters which directly or indirectly govern the plant growth and hence their produce. Automation is process control of industrial machinery and processes, thereby replacing human operators.
CURRENT SCENARIO
Greenhouses in India are being deployed in the high-altitude regions where the sub- zero temperature up to -40° C makes any kind of plantation almost impossible and in arid regions where conditions for plant growth are hostile. The existing set-ups primarily are:
MANUAL SET-UP:
This set-up involves visual inspection of the plant growth, manual irrigation of plants, turning ON and OFF the temperature controllers, manual spraying of the fertilizers and pesticides. It is time consuming, vulnerable to human error and hence less accurate and unreliable.
PARTIALLY AUTOMATED SET-UP:
This set-up is a combination of manual supervision and partial automation and is similar to manual set-up in most respects but it reduces the labor involved in terms of
irrigating the set-up.
FULLY- AUTOMATED:
This is a sophisticated set-up which is well equipped to react to most of the climatic changes occurring inside the greenhouse. It works on a feedback system which helps it to respond to the external stimuli efficiently. Although this set-up overcomes the problems caused due to human errors it is not completely automated and expensive.
Work Completed:
1) Collection of idea, circuit information, circuit block diagram.
PROPOSED MODEL FOR AUTOMATION OF GREENHOUSE
The proposed system is an embedded system which will closely monitor and control the microclimatic parameters of a greenhouse on a regular basis round the clock for cultivation of crops or specific plant species which could maximize their production over the whole crop growth season and to eliminate the difficulties involved in the system by reducing human intervention to the best possible extent. The system comprises of sensors, Analog to Digital Converter, microcontroller and actuators.
When any of the above mentioned climatic parameters cross a safety threshold which has to be maintained to protect the crops, the sensors sense the change and the microcontroller reads this from the data at its input ports after being converted to a digital form by the ADC. The microcontroller then performs the needed actions by employing relays until the strayed-out parameter has been brought back to its optimum level. Since a microcontroller is used as the heart of the system, it makes the set-up low-cost and effective nevertheless. As the system also employs an LCD display for continuously alerting the user about the condition inside the greenhouse, the entire set-up becomes user friendly.Thus, this system eliminates the drawbacks of the existing set-ups mentioned in the previous section and is designed as an easy to maintain, flexible and low cost solution.