The Smart Greenhouse Realization of a smart autonomous Greenhouse Gianluca Belardinelli Istituto Tecnico Industriale Don Orione Fano State Exam Candidate: Gianluca Belardinelli – The Smart Greenhouse
The evolution of the Greenhouse the first greenhouse was built in the roman empire, and it had the purpose to force the growing of some plants, outside their flowering period. Eventually the structure changed, going from very big buildings, to very small and economic structures. Nowadays they’re used mostly in the economic field, to produce vegetables or flowers that are outside their normal flowering period. Istituto Tecnico Industriale Don Orione Fano State Exam Candidate: Gianluca Belardinelli – The Smart Greenhouse
The evolution of the automation Initially they used a steam valve’s system that opened and closed at regular intervals a valve, that had a specific purpose. Nowadays the principle is the same, except that everything is controlled by a PLC (Programmable Logic Controller). Istituto Tecnico Industriale Don Orione Fano State Exam Candidate: Gianluca Belardinelli – The Smart Greenhouse Modern PLC Centrifugal governor
Ideas behind the project The idea for the project was born after the need to grow a plant of small dimensions, in a narrow, without continuously checking the growth state of the plant. Mainly we wanted to use recycled parts from other projects, like the Udoo and the DHT22. Istituto Tecnico Industriale Don Orione Fano State Exam Candidate: Gianluca Belardinelli – The Smart Greenhouse Detail of the structure of the greenhouse
The Udoo The project is based on a hardware platform called Udoo, that encloses a Freescale i.MX 6 ARM 1GHz processor, and a Atmel SAM3X8E ARM Cortex- M3 micro controller, the same used by the Arduino Due. Istituto Tecnico Industriale Don Orione Fano State Exam Candidate: Gianluca Belardinelli – The Smart Greenhouse Udoo, with details of the components Udoo, with the detail of the logo
Hardware Structure The hearth of the project is the Udoo, that has the purpose of controlling the various sensors that compose the project. The list of the sensors is the following: DHT22 (sensor for the temperature and the humidity); 4 Channel 5V Relay Module (used to control the water pump, the lamp and the fan); Soil Moisture Detection Control Module (to control the humidity of the soil); Low consumption CFL Lamp 125w AGRO (for the growth of the plant); Reflector Stuco Martellato (to spread the light inside the greenhouse); Submersible Water Pump (for the irrigation of the plant). Istituto Tecnico Industriale Don Orione Fano State Exam Candidate: Gianluca Belardinelli – The Smart Greenhouse
Software Infrastructure The project was created by using different programming languages. The logic scheme is the following: Istituto Tecnico Industriale Don Orione Fano State Exam Candidate: Gianluca Belardinelli – The Smart Greenhouse
Arduino Application The software side is mostly based on the Arduino, since it will send and receive data from the various sensors, and all of that thanks to the UART serial bus between the SAM3X8E and the i.MX 6 processor. Istituto Tecnico Industriale Don Orione Fano State Exam Candidate: Gianluca Belardinelli – The Smart Greenhouse The Udoo, with the sensor shield e and other sensor connected
Java Application The Java application is based on 2 libraries, JavaSecureChannel and JavaSimpleSerialConnector, that allows to read the data sent by the Arduino to the serial port, and to load the various files to the server, with the SFTP protocol. Istituto Tecnico Industriale Don Orione Fano State Exam Candidate: Gianluca Belardinelli – The Smart Greenhouse Reading the serial data on the linux side of the Udoo
PHP Application The web page is written in PHP, in order to read and modify the various files inside the server, and to communicate with the MySQL database. Istituto Tecnico Industriale Don Orione Fano State Exam Candidate: Gianluca Belardinelli – The Smart Greenhouse Homepage
Physical structure The structure of the greenhouse was built by buying different parts at the Brico store, and was built without the need of a carpenter, because that’s a prototype, so that the structure could be modified if any error was encountered, without having to worry about rebuilding everything from scratch. Most of the work was done by my friend and colleague Geremia Tomassoni, which I thank a lot. Istituto Tecnico Industriale Don Orione Fano State Exam Candidate: Gianluca Belardinelli – The Smart Greenhouse Creation of the base of the structure Creation of the internal skeleton
Results The final product is still incomplete, because it’s still missing the connection between different parts, like the lamp to the Relay Shield, and other things. In return, most of the software is ready, thanks to the help of my teachers Stefano Morichetti and Andrea Primavera, and my colleague and friend Alessandro Borione, who helped me to code the server side of the project. Istituto Tecnico Industriale Don Orione Fano State Exam Candidate: Gianluca Belardinelli – The Smart Greenhouse
Conclusion and future updates The introduced system could receive various upgrades, like the possibility to configure the system for different plants with the help of a page written in PHP, or a better temperature control system. Another upgrade would be to have the external structure made by a carpenter, so that the product would look like more of a final one, than a prototype. Istituto Tecnico Industriale Don Orione Fano State Exam Candidate: Gianluca Belardinelli – The Smart Greenhouse