Mehran University of Engineering and Technology

Department of Electronics Engineering

Group No. 03

Student Roll NO(s)#: (16ES03, 16ES05, 16ES21, 16ES25, 16ES63,

16ES123)

Digital Instrumentation Systems Project

Project Name: Greenhouse Monitoring System Using Arduino

Submitted to: M. Zaigham Abbas Shah

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Dated: 02-08-2018

CONTENTS

Page Number

 Introduction....................................................................................................3
 Motivation.......................................................................................................3
 Project Description..........................................................................................3-6
 Risk Assessment...............................................................................................6-7
 Cost Assessment...............................................................................................7
 Gantt Chart.......................................................................................................7
 Conclusions.......................................................................................................8

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1 Introduction
Greenhouses are closed environments where conditions are optimized for plant growth.
Optimal controls require information both from the indoor and outdoor environments.
Typically, carbon dioxide (CO 2), relative humidity, and temperature are measured in the
greenhouse. Outside measurement parameters include wind speed and direction, rain
and solar radiation. Monitoring and control of green house environment plays an
important role in production and management. To control the green house parameters
for optimal growth it is necessary to design such a system which is able to monitor these
parameters effectively. Therefore, the main purpose of this project is to design a green
house monitoring system which may monitor temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide and
light intensity of the green house environment.
2 Motivation
Greenhouses form an important part of the agriculture and horticulture sectors of a country.
They can be used to grow plants under controlled climatic conditions for optimal production.
Automatic monitoring of environmental conditions within greenhouse allows any type of
plant to be grown all year round as it eliminates the risk of greenhouse environment not being
maintained at specific environmental conditions due to human negligence. Another benefit of
the system under consideration is that it minimizes the labour costs involved in maintaining a
greenhouse.
3 Project Description/Methodology
This system will closely monitor the microclimatic parameters of a greenhouse on regular
basis round the clock for cultivation of crops or specific plant species which could maximize
their production over the whole season. The system comprises of sensors which serves as the
data acquisition part of the system and acquire the values of temperature, humidity, light
intensity and carbon dioxide values of the greenhouse at that instant of time. These values are
then digitized by the ADC of the Arduino microcontroller to be processed further. When any
of the above mentioned parameters crosses a safety threshold which has to be maintained to
protect the crops, the sensors senses the change and the microcontroller reads this data as its
input and provides a visual display of the situation through a LCD as so that necessary steps
may be taken. LEDs are also used to provide visual indication of any such condition. The
design components of the monitoring system are broken down into two main sections:
Hardware and Software each of which is described below.
3.1 Hardware
The monitoring system consist of three sensors that are interfaced with the Arduino UNO
microcontroller in order to digitally monitor the parameters of the greenhouse system. The
main elements of the hardware is described below.
a. Arduino UNO:
Description:
The Arduino UNO is a microcontroller board based off of the ATmega328P chip. The UNO
provides 14 digital I/O pins along with 6 analog input pins. The monitoring system required a
total of eight digital pins and four analog pins making the Arduino UNO a perfect candidate.
The UNO has a clock speed of 16 MHz and a flash memory of 32 KB which is more than
enough to run and process the monitoring system code.
Function in the Circuit:
In the monitoring system circuit the UNO board serves the following purposes:

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  It converts the analog readings obtained from the sensors (since temperature, light and
humidity are analog in nature) into digital values.
 It constantly monitors the digitized parameters of the various sensors and verifies
them with the predefined threshold values.
b. DHT11 Temperature and Humidity Sensor:
Description:
The DHT11 is a dual temperature and humidity sensor, meaning that it can read
both temperature and humidity. This sensor uses serial communication that is
reliable and has long term stability. These are major advantages of using this
sensor. The DHT11 requires a pull-up resistor, approximately 5 KΩ, to be placed
between the data wire and voltage supply. This prevents the input pin from
floating in an undefined state or going high if the sensor was disconnected.
Function:
Determines the temperature and humidity values.
c. BH1750 (GY-302) Light Intensity Sensor:
 BH1750 is a digital ambient light sensor on a GY-302 breakout PCB. The sensor
can measure continuous brightness. It uses the I2C bus interface and provides the
measurements in lux (1 lux= 1 lm/m2 , where lm and m2 is the unit of luminance
and area respectively) . This sensor is employed in the circuit due to following
specifications:
 Operating voltage: 3.3V - 4.5V max.
 Low current by power down: max 1uA.
 I2C bus interface: max 400 kHz.
 Ambience light:
o Range: 1 - 65535 lx.
o Deviation: +/- 20%.
o Selectable resolutions:
 lx (low resolution, max 24 ms measurement time)
 1 lx (mid resolution max 180 ms measurement
time)
 0.5 lx (high resolution 180 ms measurement time)
 No additional electronic components needed.
Function:
To determine the light intensity value.
d. MG811 CO2 Sensor:
Description:
The MG-811 sensor outputs a voltage Vs inversely and linearly proportional to the base 10
logarithm of concentration of CO2 in the air. We define the following quantities:
Vo............This is the value Vs assumes at a CO2 concentration of 400 PPM and is the
REFERENCE voltage.
Vc............This is the value Vs assumes at a concentration of 1,000 PPM (0.1% in a 99.9% air
volume).
ΔVs = Vo - Vc............This is the REACTION VOLTAGE and defines the slope of the PPM
Vs. Voltage Output curve.
Since we have an inverse relationship, Vo is by definition the maximum value possible, so

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that ΔVs is always positive.
C............This is the CONCENTRATION of CO2 expressed in PPM (parts per million).
The MG-811 is capable of measuring C in the range 400 – 10,000 PPM (0.04% to 1%).
Unfortunately the output voltage reference Vo varies from sensor to sensor in a range of 200
to 600 mV and accurate calibration is necessary. To define the slope of the Concentration Vs.
Output voltage curve, the sensor’s output Vc at 1000 PPM must also be calibrated. When
these two parameters are known, the operational range of the sensor is fully calibrated and
defined by the following equation:
Vs = 400 + (ΔVs / ((LOG (400) – LOG 1000) * (LOG (C) – LOG (400))) .........[1] 
Vs = 400 - ( ΔVs / (0.398 * (LOG (C) -2.60206)......................... [2] 
Where Vs and ΔVs are in mV, C is in PPM and LOG is the natural logarithm (Base 10).
The features due to which this sensor is employed in this circuit are as follows:
 Good sensitivity and selectivity to CO2.
 Low humidity and temperature dependency.
 Long stability and reproducibility.
Function:
To determine the concentration of CO2 in the air in greenhouse.

e. LCD:
LCD modules are vey commonly used in most embedded projects, the reason
being its cheap price, availability and programmer friendly. 16×2 LCD is named
so because; it has 16 Columns and 2 Rows. There are a lot of combinations
available like, 8×1, 8×2, 10×2, 16×1, etc. but the most used one is the 16×2 LCD.
So, it will have (16×2=32) 32 characters in total and each character will be made
of 5×8 Pixel Dots.
Function:
 The function of the LCD is to get the Commands and Data from the MCU and
process them to display meaningful information.

3.2 Software:
The monitoring software is written in the Arduino language and is implemented on
the Arduino UNO microcontroller. The three sensors are polled every 5 seconds
and then the values are monitored on the LCD. The monitoring software can be
found in Appendix A.

a. DHT11 Temperature and Humidity Sensor

The humidity sensor is read by the Arduino from digital pin 12. The DHT11 sensor
comes with an Arduino ready library, this allows for easy integration with any
system. The DHT sensor works on a 1 wire-2 way communication system. The
Arduino will first send a high ready signal to the DHT, then the DHT will send
back its data package. This data package is made up as follows: 8 bit integral
humidity data + 8 bit decimal humidity data + 8 bit integral temperature data + 8 bit
decimal temperature data + 8 bit check sum for a total of 40 bits. This process takes

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 approximately 4 ms. The humidity and temperature values are then sent to the
LCD.

b. MG811 CO2 Sensor:

This sensor is read by the Arduino from analog input pin A0. The MG-811
sensor is basically a cell which gives an output in the range of 100-600mV
(400—10000ppm CO2). The output voltage will decrease as the CO2
concentration increases. As long as the CO2 concentration is high enough
(voltage is lower than threshold), a digital signal (ON/OFF) will be released.
This digital signal in this circuit is read is “BOOL HIGH” or “BOOL LOW”
representing whether the concentration of CO2 in air is above or below the
normal value i.e 400 ppm.

c. BH1750 (GY-302) Light Intensity Sensor:

This sensor is connected using I2C bus interface with arduino which requires 2
two pins to communicate with the device. The SDA and SCL pins are
connected to A4 and A5 respectively so that data can be read by the Arduino.
At the beginning of the program, the library is called and the lightMeter object
is initialized by indicating the address of the BH1750 on the I2C bus. By
default the BH1750 is located at address 0x23. The library by default uses the
continuous high resolution mode with an accuracy of 0.5LUX and 120 ms
measurement time.

A block diagram representing the system’s function is given below:

4. Risk Assessment
S N.o Risk Mitigation Measure
1. Failure of Humidity The sensor might give no
Sensor(DHT11) readings so it can be
corrected by connecting the
sensor without any resistor to
arduino.

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 2. Failure of Light Intensity Adding the right delay time for
Sensor BH1750(GY-302) the one-time measurement can
reduce the failure of reading
light level.
3. Failure of LCD in displaying Connect pin 3 (VEE) of LCD
the output. with ground so as to adjust
the contrast voltage.

5. Cost Assessment
S N.o Component Quantity Price (PKR)
1. Ardiuno UNO 1 750
2. MG811 CO2 sensor 1 3000
3. 16x2 LCD 1 250
4. Humidity 2 380
Sensor(DHT11)
5. Light Intensity Sensor 1 350
BH1750(GY-302)
6. LEDs 3 10
7. Jumper wires 30 260
8. Breadboard 1 150
Total Cost 5150

6. Gantt Chart
Task name April-may 18 July – 18 July- 18 July – 18 1 Aug- 2 Aug-18
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PLANNING OF
PROJECT

Modeling of
Components
and coding

DESIGN &
WORKING ON
PROJECT

COMPLETION
OF PROJECT

SUBMITION

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 7. Conclusion/Outcomes
A step-by-step approach in designing the arduino based system for measurement and
monitoring of the four essential parameters for plant growth, i.e temperature, humidity, light
intensity and concentration of CO2 in air, has been followed. The results obtained while
testing the system have shown that the system performance is quite reliable and accurate. The
project can be further modified to control the parameters that are being monitored by the
system. The design is quite flexible as the software program can be modified any time. It can
thus be tailor made to the specific requirements of the user. This makes the system to be an
economical, portable and a low maintenance solution for greenhouse applications, especially
in rural areas and for small scale agriculturists.