Design and deployment of an IoT-based monitoring system for hydroponic crops

Abstract

The IoT is a technological trend, it makes possible intelligent systems between connected things, its application is founded in different fields, one of them is agriculture, where the use of new techniques such as hydroponics are booming. It is important to address this area because the world population will reach approximately 9.6 billion inhabitants by 2050, therefore, to meet this demand, the agricultural industrial pace needs to be even faster and more precise. Moreover, the increase in ambient temperature and climate changes due to global warming are also negatively affecting agricultural production. In this research, a scalable IoT monitoring system based on Sigfox technology with 89.37% prediction capabilities through neural networks is presented for agricultural applications. An effective four-layer architecture consisting of perception, network, middleware, and application is provided. For validation, the system was built, experimentally tested and validated by monitoring temperature, humidity and nutrient recirculation control, in a hydroponic system in the city of Loja-Ecuador, for five months. The developed system is intelligent enough to provide the appropriate control action for the hydroponic environment, depending on the multiple input parameters collected, facilitating an effective management for farmers, thus improving their production.