ARM Based Remote Monitoring and Control

System for Environmental Parameters in

Greenhouse

Nagesh Kumar D.N

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Jyothy Institute of Technology
Bangalore, India
nageshjit@gmail.com

Abstract - The work is implemented for remote monitoring and cables, adds or reduces configuration at random, possess
control of greenhouse parameters with the help of sensors and simple system construction. Moreover, it is characterized by
GSM communication. It overcomes the disadvantages of wired its low power consumption. Therefore, it proves to be simple
and wireless constraints such as complicated wiring, difficult
and of practical significance.
maintenance and distance, to monitor and control the
applications. The application will have embedded system which
Greenhouse environment parameters monitoring system
consists of ARM7 microcontroller, real time operating system,
sensors, GSM modem and control devices to monitor the based on wireless communication technology has been
environmental parameters condition namely temperature, developed to control remotely, which realizes the
humidity, CO2 concentration and light intensity in greenhouse.
measurement, summary and control of temperature, CO2,
The threshold levels of the sensors will be set with the help of
push button keys or remotely via GSM communication mode. By
humidity, light intensity and the other parameters.
this, environmental parameters in greenhouse can be monitored
and controlled manually as well as remotely. The hardware and A. Back Ground
software modules of the application system are discussed in
detail. This embedded application is implemented and tested for In greenhouse more number of the parameters is to be
its correct functionality. The experimental results show that the
control because, the varieties of the crops are large. They are
developed monitoring system has the following features, such as
increasing day by day because of the development in
simple structure, high reliability, good extensibility and flexible
configuration. It will control automatically the environmental
agriculture technology. The automation is possible with
parameters in every greenhouse and has project practicality and
simple hardware by using microcontroller where only the
vendibility. controlling is possible but user (farmer) will not get
information about the greenhouse. On progress towards the
Keywords - Greenhouse; GSM; ARM7; Temperature; Humidity; improvement to monitor and control, an attempt was made
Light intensity;, CO2; PIR; using wireless technology. There are many technologies can
be used for wireless application. It was tried to adopt the
wireless communication like Infrared, Bluetooth, Zigbee and
I. INTRODUCTION
RF technology. But the attempt has failed because of
A greenhouse is a building in which plants are grown. technology constraints.
These structures range in size from small sheds to very large
buildings. For the large rural distract, the greenhouse In this situation, the wireless sensor network with
production has become a way of being rich. The growth of additional hardware and software is a solution for greenhouse
crop in greenhouse depends on temperature, CO2, humidity,
control. If parameters still increase, then for WSN technology
light intensity and other parameters in greenhouse. So it is
bandwidth may not be sufficient [1]. A Control System of
important to real-timely and properly measure and adjust the
temperature, CO2, humidity, light intensity and other Environment Parameters of Greenhouse based on CAN Bus is
parameters in the greenhouse. With the continued expansion existing and requires wired system [2].
of production scale, the disadvantages of traditional wire
monitoring system are more and more prominent, such as The Wireless Measurement and Control System for
complicated arrangement, difficult maintenance and so on. Environmental Parameters in Greenhouse [3], overcomes the
Then the Remote monitoring system is developed, which
based on wireless communication technology, does not need

978-1-4799-6085-9/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE

disadvantages of wired monitoring system, such as
complicated wiring & difficult maintenance.

This project is designed to overcome the above mentioned

disadvantages, using which the environmental parameters in
every greenhouse can be measured and controlled by
microcontroller remotely. The Parameters settings can be
made in two modes i.e. by using push button keys or by GSM
communication mode remotely. A user can know the
greenhouse status or control the system at any time by sending
the commands through the GSM technology.

The user can use mobile phone to set the sensor parameters
from any place by sending a setting command message to the
GSM modem. Also the monitoring device will send the
environmental conditions to the user on request at any time.
The system can be switched ON or switched OFF just by
sending a power ON/OFF command. Fig. 1. Overview of ARM based monitoring and
control system architecture
II. OVERVIEW
B. Temperature Sensor
The Fig. 1 shows the block diagram of ARM based
Monitoring and Control system architecture. It contains two The temperature sensor will give a variable output voltage
modules, namely monitoring unit and controlling unit. with respect to the temperature variation. LM-35 is used as
Where Tu: Upper Threshold Temperature temperature sensor which is a precision integrated-circuit
TL: Lower Threshold Temperature temperature sensor, Calibrated directly in ° Celsius
Hu: Upper Threshold Humidity (Centigrade), Linear + 10.0 mV/oC scale factor with accuracy
HL: Lower Threshold Humidity O.soC (at +25°C) with rated for full -55° to +150°C range.
Lu: Upper Threshold Light Intensity Here we will set the minimum temperature value to 20° C and
LL: Lower Threshold Light Intensity maximum temperature values to 30° C (for demo purpose, in
C02U: Upper Threshold CO2 real time the settings will vary with respect to plantation in the
C02L: Lower Threshold CO2 greenhouse). If the current temperature rises above the
maximum threshold range relayl will be triggered and the
A. Monitoring Module cooler connected to it will switched on. If the temperature falls
below the minimum threshold, then relay2 will be triggered to
The monitoring module will be placed at the greenhouse.
switch on the heater. If the current temperature is from 20° C
This module will consist of a microcontroller (LPC2129)
to 30° C both relayl and relay2 will be switched off.
which is designed on ARM7 Architecture. This
microcontroller is a 32 bit and is chosen because of its low C. Humidity Sensor
power consumption, inbuilt 10 bit ADC, and UART based
serial communication and is well suited for application Humidity is the quantity of water content in atmosphere.
requirement. The sensor output will be a variable voltage with respect to the
humidity level. Humidity will be measured in percentage. The
The sensor array will have five sensors namely SY-HS-220 humidity sensor is used which converts relative
temperature sensor, humidity sensor, CO2 sensor, light humidity to the output voltage with operating humidity range
intensity sensor and passive infrared sensor. The 30% - 90% RH and accuracy is ± 5% RH (at +25°C). In
microcontroller monitors the sensors; these sensors will give nonnal condition the humidity will be around 50% to 70%. In
an analog output i.e. variable voltage output. To read this our module we will be setting minimum level to 50% and
information the microcontroller needs to convert this analog maximum level to 65%. If the current reading falls below the
signal to digital fonn. This is done with the help of analog to minimum level the relay3 will be triggered to switch ON the
digital convertor (ADC). water sprinkler, which will spray water to raise humidity level.
Similarly if the humidity rises above maximum limit relay4
 will be triggered which in tum OFF the water sprinkler or G. Control Module
connect drier fan to it. The user can use GSM mobile phone as a remote control
module to monitor the greenhouse and can set/control the
D. CO2 Sensor
sensor parameters from any place by sending a setting
This sensor is used to sense the concentration of CO2 in a command message to the GSM modem which is at the
greenhouse. MQ-7 sensor is used as CO2 sensor which is high greenhouse monitoring system. Also the monitoring device
sensitivity to LPG, natural gas, sensitivity to alcohol, smoke. can send the environmental conditions to the user on request
The C02concentration detection range is 200ppm to any time. The system is implemented with password privilege
10000ppm. The concentration of C02can be measured in PPM to protect from unauthorized users.
or %.If the concentration of CO2 is above the upper threshold
level the relay5 will be triggered to open the ventilator. H Specifications
Similarly, if the concentration of CO2 falls below the
minimum threshold level, the relay6 will be triggered to close TABLE!. TEMPERATURE SPECIFICATIONS
the ventilator. This sensor is also used as gas sensor to detect Optimal values of air temperature in 'e
the smoke if occurs in greenhouse.
Development Harvesting
Vegetable Germination Young
E. Light Sensor process process
Name process Plants
Light sensors are nothing but the light dependent resistors Day N�bt Day N�bt
in which the resistance will vary with respect to the light Watermelon 17·IS'e mo'e 1)·lsoe 25-30oe lS-20'e 13-15'e
intensity falls on it. This is a variable resistor and the concept
of voltage divider is used to read the light intensity. The Tomato & Beans lO-l2'e 20-27'e lO-13'e 22-2S'e 15-1)'e 8-lO'e
output will be read in terms of Lux. The light dependent
resistor is used to detect the light intensity. It has two
TABLE II. HUMJDTTY, CO2 AND LIGHT INTENSITY
cadmium sulphide (cds) photoconductive cells with spectral PARAMETERS SPECIFICATIONS
responses. The cell resistance falls with increasing light
intensity and it can detect the minimum light intensity i, e CO2
L�ht intensity
moonlight O.l lux. Here we will be using artificial lights to Concentration
Vegetable Relative (Lux)
(lOOOmn
maintain the light intensity as the sun light falls below the Name Humidity(%)
Min Max Min Max
required quantity as it becomes evening and night. If the light
intensity is above the maximum threshold level, the relay7
Watermelon 65-75% 0.01% 0.03% 45Lux 50Lux
will be triggered to tum lights OFF. Similarly, if the light
intensity is falls below the minimum threshold level, the Tomato & Beans 50-60% 0.01% 0.03% 45Lux 50Lux

relay8 will be triggered to turn lights ON.

F. PJR Sensor
III. SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION
The PIR (Passive Infra-Red) sensor is a device that detects
motion by measuring changes in the infrared levels emitted by The Fig. 2 shows the main control flow diagram of the
surrounding objects. This motion can be detected by checking project. This control flow is carried out at the monitoring unit
for a high signal on a single 110 pin. The PIR used is the 555- by FreeRTOS real time operating system. It is started with
28027 part number. This is about how the sensors and initializing all the hardwares such as analog to digital
respective devices can be monitored and controlled with converter, GSM modem, keyboard, display and interrupts.
respect to the environmental conditions. The keypad is used to Then all the six tasks tGSM, tKeypad, tActuator, tDaq,
configure the parameters. The LCD is used to display the tDisplay and tPIRItSmoke will be spawned. Finally RTOS
sensor outputs. The input parameters settings can be made in starts scheduler to schedule the tasks based on priorities and
two modes, i.e. by using push button keys or with the help of keeps running all the tasks for indefmite of time which is
GSM communication mode. The GSM modem is interfaced to mentioned as while (1).
the microcontroller to communicate and it is done with the
help of UART (universal asynchronous receiver transmitter)
serial communication. A valid SIM card will be inserted into
the modem to enable wireless communication. The GSM
module functionality is such that the microcontroller enables
the GSM module to send the message to the configured
mobile and vice versa.
 B. GSM Software Module
C Start
�
1
Initialize all hardware ADC,
Modem, Display,
Keyboard, Interrupts

1
GSM tGSM -
Spawn tasks for

Keyboard Monitor - tKeypad XO

Relays/Actuators - tActuator
ADC (data acquisition) - tDaq
Display - tDisplay
PIR/Rre - t PIR/tSm ok e

1
Start RTOS Scheduler

I
End / while (1)

Fig. 2. Main flow diagram

A. Software Modules
There are six tasks to handle software modules. The Acnpt II �d!r
TABLE III describes the software module names and their T� T· H� H:..
task names. Each task is assigned with priority, where 5 is the I.e. 4. CO;' CO:!.
i!ldchJnEtl�
highest priority and 0 is the lowest priority. These tasks are
handled by the FreeR TOS real time operating system at the
monitoring system.

TABLE TIT. SOFTWARE MODULES Fig. 3. OSM driver dataflow diagram

SI.No. Module Name TaskName Priority

C. ADC Software Module
1 OSM Modem tOSM 5 (Highest)

2 Keypad tKeypad 4

3 Relays / Actuators tActuator 3 ( S t.an

)
4 ADC (data aquisition) tDaq 2 A c qillIe dat.a from AD C
Channel 00 Channel 10
5 LCD Display tDisplay 1 Channello Channel 3 and
Update Tempo Htllllidityo Lighto C02
6 PIR / Fire tPIR / tSmoke o (Lowest)
1
Task delay

1
Fig. 4. ADC driver dataflow diagram
D. Actuators Software Module

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IV. RESULTS 61 II 00111101
48 II (0110))0
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The architecture is implemented with FreeRTOS using 46 � 00110110
embedded C and simulated in Keil IDE. The simulation �O 32 00110010
outputs are as shown below.
Fig. 7. Detecting unauthorized person
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
9l1'Jlr a� [)d�bll H,r,l\�1'Q
� r� i 14100 (' � r5 111 fl"1IIfiI
iltl£1W:11 (' 1200 i 1m (' 1 ml ('r.il r RTS.i\:r� The author would like to thank the constant support of Lt.
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('!ill r laiOO r �JmI
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Dr. V. Venkateswarlu and Dr. Siva S Yellampalli.
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IumOI!il:<Med r fIN "'ilinEll 1\C1N
1!IlIlill em CDSA ceo l
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different vegetables cultivation for the complete cycle from
germination to harvesting process. 2) It can be implemented
with GPRS to control through internet. 3) Adopting touch
screen based Human Machine Interface to monitor and
control.