IoT Implementation for Indoor Vertical Farming

Watering System

Muhammad Ikhwan Hanif bin Ismail, *Norashikin M. Thamrin

Faculty of Electrical Engineering
University Teknologi Mara, Selangor, Malaysia
*norashikin.mthamrin@gmail.com

Abstract— Vertical farming is the practice of planting the sunlight which lead them to become dead [2] as well create an
plants in vertically stacked layers which optimize the land usage uneasy environment for its surroundings locally or globally.
as it can be implemented in an indoor environment. The main Vertical farms could produce crops that are grown with an
idea of vertical farming is to use a controlled-environment
incredible contained environment that can be described as
agriculture (CEA) technology, where all environmental factors
can be controlled. Therefore, in this project, an automatic
genetic engineering in agriculture. Agriculture is very
system, which consists of the Internet of Thing [IoT] is important to the population and agriculture advantage is quite
implemented in providing the controlled environment for the obvious from the perspective of the population. Vertical
vertical farming. The main purpose of this project is to build a farming allows areas with the mainland to return to the natural
system to monitor the soil moisture and to control water content landscape. It can also reduce pest populations. Vertical farming
through the web browser on the laptop, mobile phone and other can take advantage of the available and limited spaces that are
handheld and compact devices. In this project, a soil moisture idle or unused in the developed and advanced city. The
sensor is used to detect the moisture or water content of the soil existence of vertical farming allows food to be produced
in the vertical farm so that the plant can be consecutively
throughout the year. Also, it can create an environment that
monitored and controlled to have enough water. When low
moisture level is detected, the signals are sent to the Arduino
encourages sustainable urban life and good health for those
platform. Then, the data is stored eventually in the Arduino IDE who have chosen to live in the city. In the future, agriculture
software and simultaneously sent to the web browser through the will no longer focus only on rural areas but more on agriculture
Ethernet that is connected to the internet router. The user can in the city [3].
monitor their plant through the web browser that allows them to To design a vertical farming structure for indoor
read the status of the soil moisture and can control the water implementation, it is not only focusing on planting the tree in
valve to release the water to the plant whenever the reading is the vertical orientation or platform, but also the watering
low or necessary. With this development, the monitoring of the system, room temperature and soil condition must be
vertical farming has been so helpful and the growth of the plant
considered. The vertical farm will provide organic minerals
can be supervised from time to time without having the operator
at the event. and enzymes to ensure healthy plant growth and promotes high
mineral intake is crucial for maximum nutrition and flavor of
Index Terms—vertical farming system, internet of thing, the final product have occurred during the crop cycle.
moisture level monitor. Therefore, the integration between the indoor vertical farming
and application through Internet of Thing (IoT) is becoming
I. INTRODUCTION crucial in order to monitor the condition of the plant effectively
as depicted in Fig. 1.
Usually, vertical farms are designed to grow plants in the
high-tech house that normally inhabit the buildings in the city
center. It is a modern agricultural system that is enclosed with a
controlled level of climate completely which eliminates the
external environmental factors such as traditional agriculture. It
is noted that vertical farming is no longer dependent on large-
scale land use although it can be set up in any building that has
lifted global climate without taking into account the current
climate as the rainy season, winter, and so on [1].
Vertical farming also contributes to the reduction of
burning issues during land preparation. This is because during
this process, the combustion occurs to dispose the whole farm
and trees that are no longer producing fruits and others. The Fig. 1: The integration between indoor vertical farming and IOT system in
general.
haze and dust due to this activity cause stunted plants for

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 Using the Internet of Things (IoT) in the vertical farming LEDs to provide light during the day for their photosynthesis
implementation can change the direction of agricultural process. However, the efficiency of the lights is not discussed
industry brilliantly in IT adoption and allows farmers to have in this paper.
more control in facing enormous challenges and reduce the Three soil moisture sensor and one water level sensor has
percentage of harmful risks such as poisonous pesticides and been used to make an analysis for a week. Soil moisture
hazardous chemicals in their plantation. In Fig. 1, the general sensors are placed with a deep of 5.5 centimeters from the
process of the IoT implementation in vertical farming project is ground surface. In this experiment, the vase has the height of
shown, which is the integration of the plants, sensors, data 20 cm to plant the seeds so that they will not be germinated or
center and dedicated communication channel. This system is an sprout and have a controlled roots. A rich loamy soil is used in
easy system to be manipulated in order to collect and manage this analysis due to its suitability with these seeds. The
data from sensors and the fastest way to react to those readings characteristic of the soil is fertilized, contains a mixture of
by controlling other variables, for an instance, to switch on the sand, clay, and other organic material, not too dense but loamy.
tap by using the phone after humidity sensor detects lower So that it won’t too quickly losing its moisture. Water level
reading and sends them through the communication medium to sensor is placed 1.5 centimeters from the bottom of the tank.
the designated system. It can be confirmed that the IoT system So, this sensor will detect the lowest level of the water in the
has enabled farmers to act quickly wherever they are to ensure pot.
their crops are safe [4]. Therefore, with the IoT implementation
and its interconnection with the hardware system via wireless
sensors and actuator, which is applied to agriculture, allows to
reducing and recycling the resources and automate the overall
processes with further efficiency.
Another advantage of vertical farming with IoT
implementation is that the automatic irrigation to the plants
which helps in saving money and water can be provided [5].
Furthermore, it is expected that the world's population is going
to reach a staggering capacity of 10 billion in 2056. At that
time, perhaps no more land for farming or development. As a
result, vertical farming invites more concern in addressing this
issue.
Another plausible cause to vertical farming is the climate
change. It has become a confounding problem because extreme
weather events such as hurricanes, floods, increased droughts
have left a very bad impression on agriculture. In addition, the
pests and the use of toxic chemical substances from the source
to eliminate the insect is also one of the factors that aggravate
Fig. 2: Platform setup for the indoor vertical farming experiment.
the farm. Vertical farming is an agricultural town of fruits,
vegetables and grains are grown in a building in the city or in
the city center. Thus, the building is designed to suit the B. Flow Control
particular plant. The overall process of monitoring and controlling the
It already knows that traditional farming does not use indoor vertical plant is depicted in Fig. 3. According to this
technology because it requires a lot of costs to accommodate figure, once the internet connection has been established, the
the use of the device in large scale agriculture. Traditional vertical farming system is ready to be controlled by the user
agricultural uses manpower to manage crops such as watering, through the web browser on the mobile phone or computer.
harvesting and so on. Therefore, the observation of these plants The water pump and the water valve will be turned on when
takes a long time. Due to these problems, the objectives of this user presses the ‘ON’ button in the web browser. In this case,
project are to develop an IoT system based on the web server to the soil moisture sensor is used to detect the humidity of the
monitor and control the soil moisture of the vertical farming soil moisture. Once the humidity data is detected by the sensor,
and to create a semi-automatic soil moisture control system for it is stored in the memory allocated in the Arduino platform.
a vertical farming implementation on the selected plant. Then, simultaneously, the data is sent to the mobile phone or
II. METHODOLOGY computer through the Ethernet module. If the reading is below
than 800, which is the digital value received from the sensor, it
A. Experimental Setup shows that the soil contains low of water. Then, when the water
valve button at the software application on the web browser is
In this work, the experimental setup platform for indoor
pressed by the user. The water is released by the valve to the
vertical farming is shown in Fig. 2. The rack is built with four
affected soil in the vertical farming. If the reading shown on
tiers of a wooden platform that contain Typhonium
the serial monitor on the Arduino Ide or web browser is higher
Flagelliforme plants or herbs plant, literally as the main
than 800 it means that the soil contains enough water. Hence,
subject. Each platform is provided with growing lights and

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the ‘OFF’ button of the water valve is pressed to stop the water the Ethernet shield and hardware platform as well as to send
flow to the farm. The system keeps idle if the soil moisture and receive the signals from the web browser that has been
sensor detected that the reading is higher than 800, the digital created.
value set in the microcontroller.

Fig. 4. Testing of the designed hardware.

Fig. 3. Overall process of the moisture and water level monitoring for
indoor vertical farming system

C. Hardware Design
Fig. 4 shows the components used in the proposed indoor
vertical farming project in this work. The components are
Arduino microcontroller board, Ethernet shield, soil moisture
sensors, water level sensor, DC motors, two-channel relays,
water valve, Light Emitter Diodes (LEDs) and push button
switches. The soil moisture sensor is used to measure the
volumetric water content in the soil [6]. It is used to measure
soil moisture over time due to evaporation process and water
intake by the plants to continuously survive. Water level sensor Fig. 5. Components and connection diagrams of the system.
acts as the measuring tool to measure water level in the tank.
Water valve with DC motor 12V is used to channel the water
to the designated plant’s pots. In this project a water pump is
used to supply water into the tank. The two channels relay is D. Software Design
used to control larger loads and devices such as AC and DC The web browser is designed by implementing a Hypertext
motors and other devices. From this project, two channels Preprocessor (PHP). The PHP processes the website page, and
relays are used to control the water valve and water pump communicates with file systems, databases, and at that point
during the switching operations. From this project, the Ethernet conveys a web page to the web server with the browser. The
shield is an important part to be configured in order to connect database keeps updated when the system is turned “ON” so
the whole hardware setup with the web browser. The Ethernet that the data can be displayed on the website in the PHP file
shield must be connected to the router to make sure that it can name db_connect. Fig. 6 shows the connection that has been
be interfaced with the web browser. established to connect the web browser with the vertical
Fig. 5 shows the diagram of the system by using Fritzing farming hardware system through the internet.
Arduino software. The relay is connected together with the There are two watering techniques which are being setup
LED lights, which act as the indicator, in order to ensure that based on the lower and upper threshold values that are acquired
the water pump and valve are turned ‘ON’ or ‘OFF’ properly. from the soil moisture sensors. The lower threshold describes
The Arduino IDE is used to write the code program and the system to be turned ‘ON’ based on the lower reading of the
programs it into the Arduino microcontroller platform in order soil moisture. Otherwise, it needs to be turned ‘OFF’. The
to control the connected peripherals, the interfacing between

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system will turn on if the soil moisture sensor detects the less opened the web page, the motor pump and water valve could
volume of the water and turn off if the sensor detects an be opened through the mobile phone. The soil moisture sensor
adequate volume of water. In this project, the lower threshold that has been used can be read from the mobile phone or web
is set below than 600. Upper threshold describes the system to browser.
turn on based on time and to turn off based on soil moisture.
The system will turn off if the soil moisture sensor detects an
adequate volume of water and turn on if the sensor detects the
less volume of the water. Based on this project, the upper limit
is set between 600 and 800.

START

Establish Connection with

WLAN
Fig. 7. Establish the connection between Ethernet shield and the Arduino
microcontroller platform.

Soil Less No
Humid?

Idle Mode (Waiting For User

Command Stage)

Command No
Received?

Decode Command String

Execute Command

End
Fig. 6. Internet connection between a web browser and indoor vertical
farming hardware for IoT system implementation.
III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
In this project, the result of the successful interconnection
between the hardware setup and the web browser can be seen
through the serial communication IDE and Arduino IDE as
depicted in Fig. 7. When the IP address is inserted correctly on
the web browser, the screen of the control application on the
Android-based phone appears as shown in Fig. 8. The common
windows from the figure shown are a web browser to control
the vertical farming. From this software application that
Fig. 8. The GUI display of the developed website through the Android-based
phone.
According to Fig. 9, the data sensor reading display on the
web browser for each level that placed with the sensor. To
update new reading of the sensor, the web browser must
refresh, hence the new data soil moisture sensor will have
updated. Soil moisture sensor is placed at every level of
vertical farming to check their soil moisture range. This case
will ease the user to read the value soil moisture and to control
the motor pump and water valve to release water to the plant.
Table I shows the result of the sensor readings for the five
days in term of the S1, S2, S3, and S4. S1 – S3 is representing
the soils moisture sensors while S4 is for the water level
sensor. Regarding the reading of the sensor, there was a
difference in term of time reading sensor and the value of the
reading sensor. For the first day which is Sunday, the reading is

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taken on the 7.30 a.m. which means the sensor reading is active
low. This case showed that the tank and soil are contained with
less of the water. After few minutes of reading, the motor of
the water pump and its valve are switched on to absorb the
water to the tank and to release it to the plants. Later, the
sensors reading are taken after the sensor detect low of water
content in the soil in the following day.

Fig. 10. Sensor readings on the serial monitor of the Arduino IDE

IV. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

The objectives of this project successfully achieved to
develop an IoT system based on the web server to monitor and
control the soil moisture of the vertical farming. Besides that,
to create a semi-automatic soil moisture control system for a
vertical farming. The created procedure of semi-automatic soil
moisture control system and IoT system based on the web
Fig. 9. Control motor and soil moisture sensor.
server is presented. Based on the result, a technology-based
control system to control the water supply to the crops has been
created. On the other hand, vertical farming can reduce the
TABLE I. SENSOR READINGS FOR S1, S2, S3 AND S4 TO MONITOR THE
usage of the water for the watering process. It can say that
MOISTURE AND WATER LEVEL OF THE SOIL because vertical farming is using the recycle water. After the
farm has been watering, the excess water off the washing plant
Day Sunday Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday will be channeled back into the reservoir water storage.
Date 10/04/16 11/04/16 12/04/16 13/04/16 14/04/16
Overall, the system showed a promising result of the controlled
Time 7.30 a.m 8.20 a.m 8.50 a.m 9.08 a.m 9.42 a.m
system using a web browser with interfacing with the Ethernet
S1 reading 253 244 240 238 235 shield for the indoor vertical farming application.
S2 reading 278 282 285 288 290 This project can be further enhanced by improving the
system using LED lighting systems as a side source of food for
S3 reading 269 273 276 279 282 the tree so that the plants get enough food during the rainy
S4 reading 270 273 275 278 281
season and winter and else. Besides that, improving systems
with technology that can be automated watering after the
sensor detects the low-level of water content. Other than that,
Figure 10 shows the readings of the soil moisture sensor improve the system by using alert or warning system to alert
and water level sensor on the serial monitor from the Arduino the user that the plants need water.
Integrated Development Environment (IDE). From this
projects that using internet as a one ways to control and ACKNOWLEDGMENT
monitor the vertical farming, there are a lot of medium type of This research is sponsored by LESTARI Fund, Universiti
the devices that can be accessed to the internet to transmit and Teknologi MARA (Contract number: 600-RMI/DANA
receive the network. Initially, Espresso Lite V2.0 which 5/3/LESTARI (70/2015)). We thank the Research Management
contains Wi-Fi module is used to build the system using the Institute (RMI), UiTM, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and
internet. Unfortunately, the implementation of vertical farming Faculty of Applied Science for their support in terms of
using the Espresso lite is not practical as it has only one analog laboratory equipment and knowledge.
pin only for the soil humidity sensor. In fact, in this project,
four soil moisture sensors are needed for each stack in the
vertical farming platform. Hence, this project was build using
the Ethernet shield as a communication medium to control the
vertical farming.

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