A SURVEY- SMART GREEN HOUSE ANDROID APPS

Sayali P. Shelar1, Sayali A. Sonawane2, Jagruti K. Vaidya3, Prof. M. D. Nikose4

1,2,3,4 E & TC Dept., Sandip Foundation’s SITRC Nashik

Abstract— This paper gives details about Smart Green House Android App which Monitors and
Controls the microclimatic environment inside a green house. From a green house we can easily
detect temperature, humidity, light and water level sensor value on android app. As per sensor
values, we set a fixed threshold values for each sensor, depending on sensor’s changing values we
are going to control cooling fan, rooftop, water sprayer and focus light. Just pressing the button in
android app, we can make on/off motors and it also has datasheet of all horticulture plantation and
season wise precaution material for monitoring and controlling. The main objective of this project is
to make it simple in design, easy to install, user friendly to monitor and record the values of
temperature, humidity, water level and sunlight of the natural environment that are continuously
modified and controlled without human interrupt in order optimize them to achieve maximum plant
growth and yield.
Keywords— Android App, PIC Controller, Wi-Fi Module etc
I. INTRODUCTION
In the early decades, Green House farmers can not accurately detect the level of temperature,
humidity, light and water level inside the green house. They only come to know the condition inside
the green house by manual operation or by feel it by themselves, which is not precise to control.
Ultimately, it experiences a huge part on their daily operations. This paper introduces Green House
Monitoring System which monitors and controls minor changes. If the condition is too dry, water
will be given to the plants or soil. But if it is too humid, then rooftop of the green house will be
opened, mostly in the daylight. There are four kinds of activities that are designed in the system.
First, if temperature is high or low then it can be changed as per requirement by using the fan.
Second, if weather inside green house is moist, then rooftop can be opened to lower the humidity
level. It can be used to open or close the rooftop based on the needs. Third, if the light intensity is
above or below the threshold value, then focus light will be on. Fourth, monitors the water level in
the green house, if the green house is too dry, the water sprayer can be activated. To maintain the
water level, sprayer can be deactivated. The monitoring and controlling is conducted through
Android Smartphone which is based on Wi-Fi Protocol. The proposed system is an embedded system
which is used for microclimatic parameters of a greenhouse which improves quality of crops or
specific plant species results maximum production over crop growth. It also diminishes the
difficulties involved in the system by reducing human interrupt to the best possible level. The sensors
sense the changing parameters and microcontroller reads the input data in analog form which further
converted into digital form by inbuilt ADC inside PIC microcontroller. The PIC microcontroller then
performs the needed actions by employing device drivers and Wi-Fi protocol. The system also
employs an android smart phone for continuous alert about the green house condition. It results
system becomes user friendly, fast in speed, reliable and low cost which eliminates existing setup
drawbacks.

II. LITERATURE SURVEY

Keerthi, Dr.G.N.Kodandaramaiah [1] has explained GSM (Global System for Mobile), cloud
computing and Internet of things (IoT) based electronic system, its design and implementation for

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sensing the climatic parameters in the greenhouse. The system meets the actual agricultural
production requirements and also monitors a variety of environmental parameters in greenhouse
effectively. For demonstrating the proposed system devices such as temperature sensor, light sensor,
relative humidity sensor and soil moisture sensor are integrated. The parameters collected by a
network of sensors are being logged and stored online using cloud computing and Internet of Things
(IoT) together called as Cloud IoT. Irrespective of the owner’s presence onsite, the procedure
provides the owner with the details online. In modern agriculture greenhouse cultivation represents a
very important role. A fully automated greenhouse control systems along with improved monitoring
system provides obvious benefits such as labor saving, but far more importantly, it enables improved
quality of production and information gathering that will make difference between earning a profit
and suffering substantial losses.

In recent times projects are on a rise even in urban areas in unique forms. Technological
progress makes the agricultural sector grow high, which here the Cloud IoT makes. The information
stored about us and the way we live our daily lives will be dramatically changed by IoT. As the
computer is connected with the Internet this cloud computing is free to use anytime and anywhere to
provide the updates this monitoring system percepts different parameters inside the greenhouse using
sensors, GSM, and cloud.

B.VidyaSagar [2] has specified about architecture of a green house monitoring system consisting of
a set of sensor nodes and a control unit that communicates with each sensor node and gathers local
information and makes necessary decisions about the physical environment. The monitoring and
GSM systems are developed for the use in green house applications in this project, where real time
data of climate conditions and other environmental properties are sensed and control decisions are
taken by monitoring system and they are modified by the automation system and sends SMS that
what operation is performed by them to user. The ambiguous applications of WSNs are immense.
These networks gathers, stores and shares sensed data among them self’s and to external node.
Human labor plays major role in the monitoring farm and plants in the agricultural field. In the green
house this will provide enormous foundation for future growth and future development of their plants
However, as the size of farming areas increases, this type of manual practice increases time
consumption and cost of the labor. This system uses wireless sensor network, Global System for
Mobile Communication (GSM) and short message service (SMS) to carry out data from the green
house with sensors which directly notify the farmers on their mobile phone. This type of practice
removes the use of wires and improved the old method of gathering data in the farming areas. This
technology has seen to be suitable for these modern days. Moreover, this paper focuses on the
monitoring and automation system in greenhouse which has capability of controlling

With the wide improvement of wireless and GSM technology the system may cost a little but
it works with more perfections. The system can also be implemented with the help of many
technologies but this technology is more reliable, easy to implement, works properly and easy to
operate.

Alausa Dele W. S, Keshinro Kazeem Kolawole [4] has specified in their paper about the
Microcontroller based Green House control device used in the automatic control and monitoring of
Equipments and quantities such as screening installations, heating, cooling, lighting, temperature,
soil Moisture level and other quantities/conditions in a Green House, with their effective monitoring,
hence the need of human monitoring is eliminated. With an effective feature it integrates and
automates the devices by turning them ON or OFF in the house also it provides recommendations for
correction when the requirement occurs. The MCU technology is behind it that can be easily altered
and re-modified easily. The alarm circuit is used to alert the Supervisor. This study concentrates on

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determining the cause and functionality of green house control device. Embedded green house
monitoring and control is intend to provide a highly detailed micro-climate data for plants within a
greenhouse environment with a new method of growing moderate crops in a tropical environment
using microclimatic conditions. The conventional wired sensors which are located in the green house
provide readings of the air temperature, light intensity and nutrient solution temperature in the
mixing tank. The intended system is an embedded system which monitors and controls 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 interaction to the best
possible extent using 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 uses 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 and is designed as an easy to maintain,
flexible and low cost solution. This project involved the implementing of a green house control
device in order to control, monitor and maintain the desired temperature in the green house by
turning ON the Heater/cooling system as when due also study the soil moisture content (when water
is needed) by turning the water valve ON or OFF.

The system has successfully overcome quite a few shortcomings of the existing systems by
reducing the power consumption, maintenance and complexity, at a reduced cost and at the same
time providing a flexible and precise form of maintaining the environment.

D. D. Chaudhary, S. P. Nayse, L. M. Waghmare [3] has given the technological development in

Wireless Sensor Networks and made it possible and useful to be used in monitoring and controlling
of greenhouse parameters in accurate agricultural measurement. In order to choose the correct
method all the parameters of greenhouse require a detailed analysis. Because of wrong suggestion of
weather and incorrect irrigation method to crops the farmers have to bear huge financial loss. The
evolution in the wireless sensor technologies and miniaturized sensor devices made it possible to use
them for automatic environment monitoring and controlling the parameters of greenhouse, for
Precision Agriculture (PA) application for smooth data traffic and remote control of green house
from long distance. The wireless sensors derived from PSoC technology with high-bandwidth
spectrum or cognitive radio technology may be the proper solution for it. Different crops in different
climates and various seasons may be produced by the farmers with the use of green house concept.
The desired Crop’s environment conditions can be maintained in the proposed green house by the
farmers. Wireless sensor nodes are very small devices with limited battery source. It’s processing
power and memory both are also limited. In automation and control applications, WSN are popular
because they are scalable and easy to handle. For greenhouse control when a more number of sensors
to identify the parameters are need to be networked wireless then various levels of networking may
be required. A Zigbee sensor network can use to maintain network performance at a high level. A
Remote Application Server (RAS) can also be employed in the area near to the localized sensor to
gather localized data, to host and to manage the network. Wireless sensors and smart transducers are
equipped with some micro-controllers for providing processing and network management capability.

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It works on low power with less complexity and high reliability for greenhouse control. In the future,
if parameter still increase, then for WSN technology with currently available bandwidth, may not be
sufficient. Then WSN with cognitive radio technology may be the solution.

S. V. VIRAKTAMATH etl, SINDHU D. HEGADEKATTE, SANGEETA M. ACHARI,

SUDHARANI Y. KHAWAST, SWAPNA G. M[5] has given details about the production of the
crop plants which are independent of geographic locations and the time of the year. In the
greenhouse the necessary elements that influence the growth and the harvest estimate of the corps,
there are light, air, water, temperature, and soil. The greenhouse also provides shelter for the plants,
protects them from harsh weather conditions, insects and diseases. It that allows the plants to grow
under optimum conditions, which maximizes the growth potential of the plants. The quality and
productivity of the crop plants is highly dependent on the management quality and a good
management scheme is defined by the quality of the information gathered from the greenhouse
environment. The main aim of our work is to design an automated greenhouse monitoring and
controlling system which is purely sensor based and can manage everything without human
interference. By using the output signals given by different sensors PLC will maintain the
appropriate conditions for the proper growth of plants in greenhouse. The main aim of this paper is to
write a program using ladder logic and implement the same using Programmable Logic Controller
(PLC) that could help in automatic control and monitoring various parameters like temperature, light
intensity soil moisture, motion detection inside a greenhouse. The PLC is an industrial computer. It is
capable of storing instructions to implement control functions such as sequencing, timing, counting,
arithmetic data manipulation and communication. PLCs specifically designed to survive the harsh
conditions of the industrial environment. A well designed PLC can be placed in an area with
substantial amounts of electrical noise, electromagnetic interference, mechanical vibration and non-
condensing humidity.

This method will help in automatic control and monitoring of different parameters inside the
greenhouse which are required for smooth maintenance using PLC without human interaction. This
project can be implemented in automation of a hi-tech greenhouse. If this project is implemented in a
large scale it can be used in automation of plantations, estates etc.

III. METHODOLOGY
The Green House monitoring system mainly consists of two subsystems: First, transmitter,
where the sensors sense the parameter and transmitted to the receiver through Wi-Fi module.
Secondly, an android app monitoring station placed separately. This system as a whole is used in
Green House application.

The hardware design consists of four sensors namely: Temperature Sensor, Humidity Sensor,
Light Sensor and Level Sensor. For the temperature sensor, if the temperature inside the green house
is high or low then it can be changed as per requirement by using the fan which is used as output for
temperature sensor. For maintaining humidity, if weather inside green house is moist, the rooftop can
be opened to lower the humidity level. It can be used to open or close the rooftop based on the needs.
For light sensor, if the light intensity is above or below the threshold value, then focus light will be
on. Therefore focus light is used as output for light sensor. For the level of water, level sensor is
used.

If the green house is too dry, the water sprayer can be activated otherwise it can be deactivated to
maintain the water level. These sensors are connected to the PIC microcontroller. The activation and
deactivation of sensors is done by the PIC microcontroller. When sensors sense the changing
parameter, the analog values will be converted into digital one by PIC microcontroller. Then

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changing parameters will be compared with standard threshold values which made fixed in android
app. As per requirement, it will increase or decrease the values by PIC microcontroller and
controlled by app through Wi-Fi protocol which will be driven by the device driver. The device
driver is used to communicate between controller and output. The transmission medium used here is
Wi-Fi protocol which is more effective for system.

IV. PROPOSED WORK

The proposed system is based on the Wi-Fi protocol module in which the parameters in the
green house are monitored by the android app and it will be observed and compared with the
standard values which are fixed in the app. So if parameters inside green house will increase or
decreased, it will firstly compared with app value after sensing it by sensors and as per the
requirement it will be controlled by the PIC microcontroller to the original value which is made fixed
to the app. This system is more effective due to the use of Wi-Fi protocol and android app. Reason is,
it is much easy to use by anyone to control the condition without any physical effort.

V. BLOCK DIAGRAM
In the block diagram, we have provided inputs to microcontroller in the form of sensors. This
microcontroller has inbuilt ADC. Wi-Fi protocol is used for communication of microcontroller and
android phone. Changing values are compared by android phone and controlled by controller. The
system is easy to operate and more accurate.
WIRELESS
Wi-Fi COMMUNICATION
Temperature Sensor

Wi-Fi ANDROID
Humidity Sensor PROTOCOL SMARTPHONE
MICRO
CONTROLLER FAN
PIC18F458
Light Sensor ROOFTOP
DRIVER
FOCUS LIGHT

Level Sensor WATER SPRYER

Fig.1 Block Diagram

I. Temperature Sensor
The temperature sensor is used here is LM35 sensor. Using
LM35, we can measure temperature more accurately than a
thermistor. It also possesses low self heating and does not because
more than 0.1°C temperature rises in air. The operating temperature
range is from -55°C to 150°C.
Fig.2 Temperature Sensor

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II. Humidity Sensor(HR202)

HR202 is a new kind of humidity-sensitive resistor made
from organic macromolecule materials; it can be used in occasions
like: hospitals, storage, workshop, textile industry, tobaccos,
pharmaceutical field, meteorology, etc. Its features are Excellent
linearity, low power consumption, wide measurement range, quick
response, anti-pollution, high stability, high performance-price ratio.
Its operating range is 20-95% RH. Humidity is the amount of water
vapor in the air. Water vapor is the gaseous state of water and is
invisible. Higher humidity reduces the effectiveness of sweating in
cooling the body by reducing the rate of evaporation of moisture
from the skin. Fig.3 Humidity Sensor

III. Light Sensor

Photo sensors or photo detectors are sensors of lighter other
electromagnetic energy. A photo detector converts light signals
that hit the junction into voltage or current. The connection
uses an illumination window with an anti-reflect coating to
absorb the light photons.
Fig.4 Light sensor

IV. Water Level Sensor

Level sensor detect the level of liquids and others fluid sand
fluidized solids, including slurries, granular materials, and
powders’ that exhibit an upper free surface. Substances that
flow become essentially horizontal in their containers because
of gravity whereas most bulk solids pile at an angle of response
to a peak.

Fig.5 Water Level Sensor

V. Wi-Fi Module
Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi is a technology that allows electronic
devices to connect to a wireless LAN network, mainly using
the 2.4 gigahertz UHF and 5 gigahertz SHF ISM radio bands. A
WLAN usually password protected, but may be open, which
allows any device within its range to access the resources of the
WLAN network.

Fig.6 Wi-Fi Module

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VI. Microcontroller(PIC18F458)

Fig.7 PIC Microcontroller

Its features are-
1) Internal program memory 32Kbytes.
2) Data Memory1536bytes.
3) 40MHz operating frequency.
4) 4.10bit ADC (8 input channels).
5) 5 I/O Ports (Port A,B,C,D,E).
6) 4 Timers(Timer 0,1,2,3)
7) 75 instructions.

VII. DEVICE DRIVER(ULN2803A)

The ULN2803A device is a high-voltage, high-current 1Darlington transistor array. The device
consists of eight NPN Darlington pairs that feature high-voltage outputs with common-cathode
clamp diodes for switching inductive loads. The collector-current rating of each Darlington pair is
500 mA. The Darlington pairs may be connected in parallel for higher current capability.

VI. CONCLUSION
The system based on Technology Acceptance Modeling. The output for the given analog
input values are visualized in android application system. The input values are given which are in
analog form by the sensors changes it into a digital value by PIC microcontroller’s ADC. The
android software is already working properly and appropriate manner with the purpose in the
beginning, that is to get temperature, humidity, light intensity and water level values from green
house and give input to control components in green house. After development is finished, test for
sensor’s work is done and device is working properly. The testing that has done shows that condition
in datasheet of sensor and in system is accurate. The test result shows in temperature 30°C to 70°C,
humidity is still in normal range area. If temperature gets higher and more, relative humidity will be
decrease and goes near to zero.
The system has successfully overcome on the drawbacks of the existing systems by reducing
the power consumption, time required, maintenance and complexity. It also provides a flexible and
precise form of maintaining the environment.

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VII. FUTURE SCOPE

Now a day’s various types of cell phones are used by people. So our device will be compatible with
phones like I-phone, android etc. Using Wi-Fi protocol system we can also control the parameters
value. We can use same system in pharmaceutical companies & in chemical laboratory applications.

REFERENCES
1. Keerthi.v, Dr.G.N.Kodandaramaiah. Cloud IoT Based Greenhouse Monitoring System. Int. Journal of Engineering
Research and Applications ISSN: 2248-9622, Vol. 5, Issue 10, (Part - 3) October 2015, pp.35-41
2. B.VidyaSagar. Green House Monitoring and Automation using GSM.International Journal of Scientific and
Research Publications, Volume 2, Issue 5, May 2012 1ISSN 2250-3153
3. Alausa Dele W.S, KeshinroKazeemKolawole. Microcontroller Based Green House Control Device. International
Journal of Wireless & Mobile Networks (IJWMN) Vol.3, No.1, February 2011
4. D.D.Chaudhary, S.P.Nayse, L.M.Waghmare. Application of wireless sensor networks for greenhouse parameter
control imprecision agriculture. The International Journal of Engineering And Science (IJES), Volume (2), Issue
(11), Pages (129-135), 2013, ISSN (e): 2319 – 1813 ISSN (p): 2319 – 1805
5. S. V. Viraktamath, sindhu d. Hegadekatte, sangeeta m. Achari, Sudharani y. Khawast, 5swapna g.m. automatic
greenhouse monitoring and controllingsystem using plc. Proceedings of 40th IRF International Conference, 11th
October 2015, Pune, India, ISBN: 978-93-85832-16-1

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