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Application of Internet of Things in Smart Greenhouse Microclimate

Management for Tomato Growth

Article in International Journal on Advanced Science Engineering and Information Technology · April 2021
DOI: 10.18517/ijaseit.11.2.13638

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 Vol.11 (2021) No. 2
ISSN: 2088-5334

Application of Internet of Things in Smart Greenhouse Microclimate

Management for Tomato Growth
Nurpilihan Bafdala,*, Irfan Ardiansahb
a
Department of Agriculture Engineering and Biosystem, Faculty of Agro-Industrial Technology, Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung,
Indonesia
b
Department of Agro-Industrial Technology, Faculty of Agro-Industrial Technology, Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung, Indonesia
Corresponding author: *[email protected]

Abstract— Microclimate control is very important for the cultivation of plants in greenhouses. Some microclimate variables are
temperature and humidity, these variables can be controlled using several methods, one of which is the misting of the cooling system,
but this process is still done manually. This research aims to create an internet-of-things-based system to automatically control the
greenhouse microclimate, controlled and controlled through a website. The results showed that the system could automatically activate
the cooling system misting when the temperature is above 30 ℃ and the humidity is below 80%. The greenhouse microclimate data can
be controlled and controlled via the website. The automation system works better in maintaining the greenhouse's microclimate
conditions than before using the automation system with a difference of 6.25 ˚C temperature and 28.06% higher humidity. Microclimate
data can be displayed and accessed via the website, and minimum and maximum temperatures can be set via the website. The factor
that affects the greenhouse temperature is the UV index. The higher the UV index, the higher the temperature. When the UV index
reaches < 10, the greenhouse temperature can still be reduced to ± 3 ℃. If the UV index > 10, the temperature can still be reduced to a
smaller value. The automation system's microclimate data processing is more effective, accurate, and the performance of the automation
system reaches 115.22% but will decrease to 80.40% when the light intensity is high.

Keywords— internet of things; greenhouse; microclimate; misting cooling system; raspberry pi

Manuscript received 3 Nov. 2020; revised 13 Mar. 2021; accepted 8 Apr. 2021. Date of publication 30 Apr. 2021.
IJASEIT is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

which ultimately provides quantity and quality of tomato

I. INTRODUCTION growth [4]. Microclimate modification is to realized optimum
The climate in the world is getting warmer for various in the smart greenhouse to improve the tomato yield. Some
human activities and increasing levels of CO2 which results farmers, until this time they control microclimate, are still
in the greenhouse's emergence effect. Greenhouse gases are done manually in the smart greenhouse, but it is unfortunate
an important factor in instability during the changing seasons that conditions still cannot be monitored and changed
because of excessive energy use. Various levels of property so the plant yield still cannot be maximized [5], [6].
microclimate influence various plants in a smart greenhouse. Smart greenhouse management should service protect plants
To protect plants, the microclimate must be arranged in such from excessive micro-climate such as heat and cold;
a way as to be suitable and optimal for plant growth [1], [2]. temperature, humidity, pH, and all parameters will proceed
Therefore, environmental conditions inside the smart automatically by information technology. One alternative is
greenhouse should be protecting the crop from microclimate the Internet of Thing using the mist cooling system [7], [8].
like temperature, humidity; pH; solar radiation; soil media, The development of modern information technology is
and pests and diseases [3]. The principal purpose of protected expected to help overcome some problems on microclimate
plant growth in a smart greenhouse is to create an optimum conditions in the smart greenhouse and be easier to maintain
potential environment for various plants, even in adverse in control [9].
microclimate conditions. There are two major favorable Application of the Internet of Things (IoT) in a smart
microclimates in a smart greenhouse. These are temperature greenhouse using a mist cooling system expected could
and humidity for the sustained growth of the tomato plant, change extreme temperature and humidity to the optimum
potential for tomato growth; it is to solve problems found in

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plant growth, especially found in tomato hydroponic between 80% to 90% to get high yield and excellent quality
cultivation [10]. Protected plant growth is usually favorable [15].
to sustainable microclimate and realizes its maximum Using the mist cooling system on microclimate with high
production even than the need for various environmental precision; could help tomato farmers predict harvest data and
conditions [11]. control, monitoring automatically in the smart greenhouse,
such as high temperature and low humidity during a dry
A. Internet of Things season [16]. Application of the Internet of Thing was a big
The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the key elements in data analysis for automatically condition process to make
the development of this revolution. The existence of the IoT pleasant activities with actual time and usually influenced in
is very useful in various fields of life, particularly in the agriculture sector by technology [8]. The realization of
agriculture. The utilization of IoT in agriculture can smart IoT makes farmers work more easily, effectively, and
greenhouse technology. The application of IoT in the efficiently because farmers do not need to control the engine,
greenhouse system can monitor microclimate such as but the engine will control themselves and collaborate with
temperature, humidity, and in real-time, the farmers can other engines.
control the plant remote [12].
Internet of Thing is a platform which used cable and B. Smart Greenhouse
wireless sensor for data process by sensory until becoming A smart greenhouse or precision greenhouse or intelligent
information, and daily communication becomes precision. greenhouse builds and protects plants' growth from excessive
The Internet of Things concept is divided into three layers. heat, cold, dust, and control from pests and diseases. A smart
These are sensing, data transfer, and application (data safety greenhouse automation system is the technical approach in
[13]. IoT technology will be alternative methods that are very which automatic monitoring and control of a smart
popular for various agriculture plants such as tomatoes. IoT greenhouse environment will benefit the farmers. A smart
in the agriculture sector was expected to raise productivity greenhouse is made as monitoring automatically of
and predict future harvesting and solve some problems in the monitoring and controlling microclimate used the sensors and
agricultural system. The Internet of Things in agriculture also farmers need not control and to spend on expensive
very potential because the farmers could raise food and monitoring and problems, cost-effective than get optimum
animal operational production [14]. temperature, for varied plant growth remotely. Urbanization
Various are suitable to get an available monitoring will affect the lack of land availability: there is a need to build
environment in a smart greenhouse such as a microclimate a smart greenhouse used mostly for growing crops like a
which as temperature and humidity can be controlled using tomato [17]–[19].
several methods, but the mist cooling is one option to sensors The utilization of methods in the smart greenhouse uses not
and controllers can change it for tomato growth. Data in a only information technology but also the main key. Therefore,
smart greenhouse will send it to the control station over the the method system measured the parameters needed by plants,
internet. Tomato is one of the most popular horticulture plants especially tomatoes, such as maintenance for tomato plants,
in Indonesia, because high vitamin C (25,16 mg/100 gram); which will be more controlled compared to a tomato grown
protein (2,18%), fat (0,26%), and carbohydrate (6,01%); but outside a smart greenhouse. Figure 1 below shows the smart
tomato required a relatively cold climatic environment were greenhouse in Indonesia.
needed temperature between 18 oC to 28 oC and humidity

Fig. 1 Tomato Plants inside Nudira Fresh Greenhouse

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 temperature and humidity in a smart greenhouse for tomato
II. MATERIAL AND METHODS growth, as shown in Figure 2. The data required in the smart
The research was conducted from January to March 2020 greenhouse for tomato growth is estimated temperature
in a smart greenhouse on Universitas Padjadjaran Jatinangor, between 20 oC to 28 oC; while humidity between 80% to 90%
Sumedang West Java province of Indonesia. The research in all seasons. The sensor data will be accessed from
aims to design the application technology of the Internet of anywhere from the internet or smartphone and updated every
Things using mist cooling on microclimate, which is 20 minutes.

Fig. 2 Research Stages Flowchart

 MariaDB, a database application for storing data

A. Instruments acquired by Python 3.
The hardware used in this research are:  Putty, a text-based remote application that is used to
 Raspberry Pi 3 Microcomputer Version B, access Raspberry Pi OS using Windows OS.
 SHT11 sensor, a digital type of sensor for measuring air  WinSCP, a Windows OS-based remote application that
temperature and relative humidity, is used to transfer files to Raspberry Pi OS.
 GUVA-S12D, an analog type of sensor used for the
index of sunlight intensity, B. Research Methodology
 The fogging system with an emitter can spray 3 microns The research was carried out in the ALG Unpad
of water, Greenhouse in Pedca Utara Universitas Padjadjaran with
 Low-pressure water pump to push air so it can form fog, coordinates of 6 ° 55'13.9 "S 107 ° 46'27.5" E. The research
 Relays, electronic components that provide voltage was conducted using the design method for 3 months, and
lines using low-voltage signals. then the device was tested in a greenhouse for 25 days by
acquiring sensor data every minute. The data stored in the
The software used in this research are: database is then analyzed using statistical analysis. It
 Raspberry Pi OS, the operating system used to operate automatically converts the data stored in the database into
the Raspberry Pi Comma-Separated Values (CSV) format so that the data will
 Python 3, a scripting programming language used to be easier to process using a spreadsheet application.
control hardware, retrieve data from sensors and
manage the database. C. Research Procedure
 PHP, a web programming language used to display all The automation devices that have been built are then
information in the database. integrated into the ALG Greenhouse as shown in Figure 3
below:

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 The fogging system pipe is made in the form of a trident
with 18 (eighteen) fog valve points so that the mist
distribution can reach all points in the greenhouse when
conditions are not ideal. The device runs from 06.00 - 18.00
every day. All sensor data is immediately recorded every
minute into the database.
The data is then processed and displayed in tabular form on
a website that can be accessed via the internet using
DynDNS's services, as seen in Figure 4a. Temperature and
relative humidity configuration parameters are set through the
admin page seen in Figure 4b, which is directly updated after
the greenhouse administrator clicks on the submit button.

Fig. 3 Diagram of Smart Greenhouse Automation System

(a)

(b)
Fig. 4 (a) Micro-Climate Automation System Information Page, and (b) Micro-Climate Automation System Configuration Page

accurately, and the data collection is carried out automatically

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION by the system. All microclimate data are then simplified by
Greenhouse microclimate data collection with an averaging the data per day so that it only displays the average
automation system is carried out every one minute per day. data for 25 measurement days, as shown in Table 1 and Figure
The data was stored in the database and displayed on the 5, respectively, which shows that there is a close relationship
website. The data that can be stored in the database can be in between temperature and humidity with a closeness level of
the thousands as a reference. The data stored in the database 0.6633 and the formula that can be used to predict the air
for 25 days is 278,880. If average, the data that can be stored relative humidity inside Pedca Greenhouse is
per day reaches ± 11,115, with that much data, it suffices to
describe the greenhouse's micro-climate conditions every day y = -3.5892x + 173.02 (1)

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 TABLE I 12 26.51 77.45
DAILY AVERAGE OF MICROCLIMATE DATA INSIDE SMART GREENHOUSE 13 26.92 74.86
Day Temperature (C) Humidity (%) 14 27.06 74.27
1 25.51 78.31 15 26.87 76.62
2 26.77 76.18 16 26.12 79.18
3 27.10 72.22 17 26.09 79.39
4 26.50 77.54 18 26.18 79.41
5 26.06 79.63 19 26.66 78.97
6 25.96 78.86 20 25.45 84.83
7 25.28 81.76 21 26.01 84.86
8 24.02 86.64 22 25.93 84.57
9 24.58 83.45 23 27.08 78.54
10 24.22 85.22 24 25.64 77.60
11 25.64 80.17 25 25.22 84.26

Fig. 5 Scatterplot of Daily Average Microclimate Data Inside Smart Greenhouse

Comparison of micro-climatic conditions carried out on the

automation system and the previous system is the average
temperature and humidity, maximum temperature, and
minimum humidity of the greenhouse microclimate for 25
days at 06.00 - 18.00. The comparison of light intensity
cannot be made because the two systems measure two things.
In contrast, the automation system measures the solar UV
index, while the previous system measures sunlight's intensity.
The data shown in Figure 6 shows that the automation
system can work better than the previous system that has not
used a cooling system, as evidenced by the difference in
average temperature per day, which reaches 6.25 C. Besides
using the automation system, it also makes the average
temperature the greenhouse temperature per day is below the Fig. 6 Comparison between Smart Greenhouse Temperature and Outside
maximum temperature to maintain in the greenhouse (30 ˚C), Greenhouse Temperature
which is 25.97 ˚C, 4.03 ˚C less, when compared to the
previous system, the average greenhouse temperature per day The data in Figure 7 also shows that the automation system
exceeds the maximum temperature to maintain in the can also work better than the previous system, as evidenced
greenhouse (30˚C), which is 32.23˚C, and 2.23˚C. The by the difference in average humidity per day, which reaches
maximum greenhouse temperature per day generated after 28.06%. Besides using an automation system, the average
using the automation system also has better results than the greenhouse humidity is very close to the greenhouse's
previous system, as evidenced by the difference in the average minimum humidity to maintain in the greenhouse (80%) is
maximum temperature per day, which reaches 2.68 ˚C. To 79.79%, only 0.31% smaller. In the previous system, the
calculate the percentage value of the increase in the greenhouse's average humidity per day was very far from the
automation system's performance against the previous system minimum humidity to maintain in the greenhouse (80%),
in maintaining the greenhouse temperature, then the value is namely 51.73%, the difference in value reached 28.27%.
19.42% at the average temperature and 6.65% at the However, the minimum greenhouse humidity per day from
maximum temperature. the two systems has a value that is very far from the minimum

431
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