Design and Development of Internet of Things based Smart Sensors for Monitoring of Agricultural Lands

In recent years, the demand for efficient and sustainable agricultural practices has been leveraged leading to smart farming practices. These practices aim to enhance agricultural processes, productivity and minimize resource wastage. One of the crucial challenges faced by farmers is the uneven distribution of soil humidity and pH across their agricultural land. Further, the irregularity in soil moisture content and pH can lead to poor crop performance, water wastage, and increased resource utilization. In this work, an Internet of things based smart sensor nodes is developed which consists of humidity and pH sensors to ensure the efficient management of water and soil conditions across an entire farm. Also, an array of humidity and pH sensors are placed across the farm and these units work independently as they have their own controller and battery unit. The developed device is integrated with a solar cell which charges the battery. Further, the data acquired from these sensors are wirelessly transmitted to base station and it gathers the information of each unit including humidity levels, pH values, signal strength and energy supply. This information is processed in the base station and graphical overview of the farm with acquired information is represented which provides farmer with a real view insight to identify the areas with poor humidity and pH conditions. The data is transmitted to IoT cloud offering the farmer to monitor their farm from remote location and in cases where humidity levels drops drastically and remains unchecked for more than two hours, the system triggers an alert. This mechanism makes sure that farmers are notified of potential issues, allowing them to prevent crop damage and optimize resource usage.