AGROFARM WEATHER MONITOR USING LabVIEW

INTRODUCTION Innovation in agriculture field Implementing instrumentation tech. in agricultural field The quantity and quality of various parameters in the agricultural farm affects the growth of plant and crop yield. Various parameters in a farm are temperature, atmospheric humidity, light intensity and soil moisture content. It is essential to monitor these parameters in the farm either it is a green farm or not. We concentrate in the farming of mushrooms, which needs extra care in its production.

BLOCK DIAGRAM DAQ SIGNAL CONDITIONING UNIT HUMIDITY SENSORTEMPERATURE SENSOR SOIL MOISTURE SENSOR LIGHT SENSOR FARM PC WITH LabVIEW

SENSORS Temperature Sensor Light Sensor Humidity Sensor Soil Moisture Sensor

TEMPERATURE SENSOR RTD( Resistance Temperature Detector) is used to detect the temperature. Resistance of the material changes with the changes in the temperature. RTD has a positive temperature coefficient. Linear range of operation in our application. Pt RTD of range -50◦C to 250◦C is used. The change in resistance can be converted into change in voltage through a Wheatstone bridge.

LIGHT SENSOR LDR( Light Dependent Resistor) is used to detect the intensity of light. Resistance of the material changes with the change in the intensity of light. The LDR who’s resistance decreases with increase in the intensity of falling light is used here. The change in resistance is converted to corresponding change in voltage through a Wheatstone bridge.

HUMIDITY SENSOR Water- vapor content of air is important parameter Hydroscopic salts like,LiCl 2 exhibit changes in electrical properties [resistivity]with changes in humidity Humidity -moisture -1/(resistivity) Here humidity sensor module by VEGAROBOKIT is used SY-HS-220 series

FEATURES: Humidity sensor module with voltage output Wide temperature compensation range High reliability and long term stability Linear DC voltage output for humidity range High sensitivity and low hysteresis Compact size and cost effectiveness

PIN CONFIGURATION GND V out V in T1 T2

SOIL MOISTURE SENSOR Our own method to determine the moisture content in the soil. A cheap sensor which effectively detects the moisture content. Made of two stainless steel electrodes and a little quantity of Plaster of Paris. Plaster of Paris shows water adsorbing property.

The amount of water content in the plaster of paris affects the conduction through the electrodes, thus there will be a change in resistance of the electrodes. This change in resistance is then converted to voltage output through a Wheatstone bridge.

SIGNAL CONDITIONING Consists of a Wheatstone bridge and an instrumentation amplifier arrangement. Each sensor output is connected to corresponding Wheatstone bridges which are designed to suite for it. The output of Wheatstone bridge is amplified using instrumentation amplifiers. These outputs are then connected to DAQ.

The power supply units made of ICs 7805,7815,7915. Contains rectifier, filter and regulator units Provides supply for bridge circuit and amplifier sections

DATA ACQUISITION PC based Data Acquisition ( DAQ ) Contains both ADC and DAC It is an interface between the analog output of the sensor and PC. The sensor output can directly given to a computer via DAQ SoftwareDAQ Transducer Signal conditioning unit

THE LabVIEW SOFTWARE Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Engineering Workbench by NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS Used for acquisition, instrument control & industrial automation on variety of operating softwares. It provides extensive support for accessing instrumentation hardware

MAIN FEATURES OF LabVIEW User friendly operation Faster programming Data display and user interfacing Data storage & reporting Advanced analysis Multiple programming approaches Hardware integration

FRONT PANELS

ADVANTAGES This system gives continuous display of the parameters. Monitoring through LabVIEW is a very easy task. Reprogramming is possible at any time. Can be changed in accordance with the situation. Use of LabVIEW reduces wired circuits in this system. Hardware failure is very rare compared to embedded system operations. Use of very cheap sensors like soil moisture sensor

CONCLUSION The system to effectively monitor the agricultural farm parameters using LabVIEW software is successfully setup.

FUTURE PLANS This system can be modified to an automated agricultural farm. By reconstructing it, we can create any weather conditions in our backyard. It can also be incorporated with tissue culture labs and other experimental setups.

APPLICATION GREEN HOUSE PAD and FAN method