Abstract: The ever-increasing population demands a higher yield of crops from the farmers. But the current yield rate might not be sufficient in the future and the quality of it may be compromised as well. However, this can be prevented if every household produces their own limited range of crops. Thus, this paper proposes an automated gardening system, which enables the user to produce a wide range of crops in a grid fashion, which is cost-effective and energy-efficient with minimum human interaction. The system consists of 3 axes controlled by Nema 17 stepper motors which helps it to navigate to each grid location to plant seeds, check moisture and water the crops. The type of seed to be planted at a particular grid location is determined by the user through an android mobile app which also allows the user to check the various parameters recorded by the sensors which are stored on the database. The seed planting is done using linear actuator mechanism, seed selection is achieved using servo motor and the watering of plants is controlled by relay and dc water pump. The Arduino mega serves as the controller to coordinate all the functions and real time clock module is used to enable automatic and regular watering of plants. The system has been implemented and tested for a 5x2 grid and the results are discussed in our paper.
My Contubition: Built an automated gardening system to enable seed selection and harvesting on command from user through a mobile application, developed using MIT app inventor2. Built the bot using aluminum extrusion, 3D printed parts and an existing mechanical frame and used three Nema 17 motors and DRV8825 drivers to move bot in three directions. Built app with security features, installed HC-05 Bluetooth module to notify bot about seed location and created database to store details of soil condition and type of seeds in every location. Used linear Actuator mechanism and servos to plant seeds successfully in the desired location with accuracy of 90%.
Credits: Thakur Rishabh Singh: for developing arduino code to control three axis of the bot and also to keep list of tasks to be done by integrating with real time clock (RTC). Katakam Ram Gopal Srikar: for developing the php server and implementing Esp_callback(), httppost() and reset() functions in the main program.