International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (ICECOS) 2019
Designing an IoT system for monitoring and
controlling temperature and humidity in mushroom
cultivation fields
Tigor Hamonangan Nasution
Department of Electrical Engineering
Universitas Sumatera Utara
Medan, Indonesia
tigor.nasution@usu.ac.id
Fahmi
Department of Electrical Engineering
Universitas Sumatera Utara
Medan, Indonesia
fahmimn@usu.ac.id
Abstract—In recent years, technology in agriculture has
grown and some of them have used information technology
based on Internet of Things (IoT). The general objective of
this study is to combine cultivation on agriculture using IoT
technology based on Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). This
study will focus on oyster mushrooms as cultivation objects
because they have good selling values and require special
conditions, namely a humid environment at a temperature
range of 16-30 oC. The system designed is remote monitoring
using the internet and wireless communication. The
monitoring system is designed using a microcontroller and
sensors that will read the temperature and humidity of the
oyster mushroom growing media. Then the parameters from
the sensor will be sent to the ThingSpeak Cloud System. This
system also allows to control the temperature of the oyster
mushroom growing media when the environmental conditions
are not as expected. Then the monitoring process will be
monitored from web pages in graphical form which is a
feature of ThingSpeak. From the results of testing the entire
system, the system successfully sends temperature and
humidity to the Cloud every 30 minutes. The system also
managed to control temperature up to 25-29 oC. From the
experiments conducted it can also be concluded that the
cultivation of oyster mushroom with temperature control will
be more effective than the oyster mushroom field without
temperature control.
Keywords—Agriculture, Cloud System, IoT, Lattepanda,
Oyster Mushrooms, Temperature and Humidity Sensors,
ThingSpeak, and WSN.
I. INTRODUCTION
To meet food needs, humans continue to strive to meet
food needs by researching various aspects of the agriculture
sector. With the development of increasingly advanced
technology in various fields, it encourages people to
integrate agriculture and technology[1]–[3]. Technology in
agriculture is now using an integrated automation system
based on the Internet of Things (IoT). This technology is
considered suitable to be applied in this field because it can
improve data collection, automation, monitoring, etc.[4],
[5]. One object that is currently being developed in this
field of study is mushroom cultivation.
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Muhammad Yasir
Department of Electrical Engineering
Universitas Sumatera Utara
Medan, Indonesia
muhammadyasir@students.usu.ac.id
Soeharwinto
Department of Electrical Engineering
Universitas Sumatera Utara
Medan, Indonesia
soeharwinto@usu.ac.id
Mushrooms are heterotrophic organisms which are
often used as a variety of processed foods, medicines and
others. Mushrooms generally grow at the location of 800
meters above sea level with the optimum temperature range
of 16-22 oC and RH (Relative Humidity) 60-90%[6], [7].
Even so, the possibility of cultivating mushrooms in the
lowlands is not impossible if the climate and storage space
of the mushrooms are designed to fit the actual mushroom
habitat. One of the challenges in cultivating this mushroom
is the lack of skills so that the quality of the mushrooms
produced is not good. Therefore, we need a mushroom
cultivation system that is integrated with technology that
can monitor and maintain the environmental conditions of
the media to grow mushrooms to always be per their
habitat.
There are some researchers who have done research in
the field of agriculture including mushrooms. The studies
were carried out to improve the quality of crops because the
system implemented by farmers is still not optimal. One of
them is the implementation of Wireless Sensor Network
(WSN) on monitoring in the field of agriculture[8], [9].
There is also research on controlling smart mushroom
home environments[4].
In this study, designed several sensor nodes in the form
of miniature mushroom cultivation land measuring 70 cm
x 30 cm x 40 cm equipped with sensors to measure
temperature and humidity. Each sensor node will send data
to the Lattepanda minicomputer that acts as a sensor node
as well as a bridge to the cloud system. Then the data is
forwarded to the cloud server so that it can be monitored
from the monitoring web page. This system also controls
the temperature of each sensor node so that the condition of
the mushroom cultivation area is always maintained in the
range of 25 oC - 28 oC.
II. METHOD
A. System overview
This system is divided into three, namely the sensor
system (node), control system and monitoring system. The
sensor system and control system are on mushroom
 International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (ICECOS) 2019

cultivation. The sensor node consists of sensors that will

read the temperature and humidity of the mushroom
cultivation land, while the monitoring system is carried out
using web pages.
The sensor system and controllers use the Arduino
Nano microcontroller as the control center. Arduino has
been widely used in designing monitoring and control
systems[10]–[13]. The sensor used in this system is the
SHT11 sensor. SHT11 is a single chip temperature and
relative humidity sensor with multi sensor modules whose
output has been digitally calibrated[14], [15]. The sensor
value will be read and sent to the bridge device
(Lattepanda) using the Bluetooth communication device
HC-05. Then the data will be sent to ThingSpeak
(thingspeak.com) which acts as a cloud using the POST
method. For the control system, Peltier modules are used as
a component of temperature control. This module will be
activated by Arduino Nano using a relay when the
temperature value is above 28 oC so that the temperature
can be lowered again.
Monitoring the sensor readings can be seen from the
webpage provided by ThingSpeak. On the web page the
values of temperature and humidity will be displayed in
graphical form. In addition, the system controller
conditions will also be displayed with number 1 when the
cooler works and number 0 when it doesn't work. The block
diagram of the system can be seen in Fig. 1.
B. Sensor system design
As seen in the flow chart in Fig. 2, the sensor system
uses several nodes to measure air temperature, air humidity
and humidity of the mushroom husk. Each node will be
placed in a different place. At each node used a
microcontroller, SHT11 sensor and soil moisture sensor to
monitor the environment of mushroom cultivation. Each
sensor will send reading data to Lattepanda. Lattepanda
will send data to the cloud system every 30 minutes.
Fig. 2. Sensor system flow chart

C. Cloud configuration
The cloud used in this study is ThingSpeak. This cloud
is a free service if only for visualization. ThingSpeak has
several features that can be used to analyze data such as
features in MATLAB[16]–[18]. Data will be stored in the
cloud using the json file format so that the user's application
will retrieve json data. The configuration is to create a
channel on ThingSpeak to accommodate the data sent by
Lattepanda. Channels are made as many as the number of
sensors on each node.
D. Design of temperature control systems
Temperature and humidity control systems are designed
using hardware that consists of Arduino, Lattepanda, DC-
DC step-down regulator, and relay. This system will
control temperature and humidity using a Peltier circuit and
DC fan. The cooling system will work when the
temperature and humidity of the air has decreased. This
Fig. 1. System block diagram
system uses a relay to activate the Peltier and a fan that
serves to moisten the environmental conditions of the
mushroom cultivation land. The system block diagram of
the temperature controller is shown in Fig. 3. In Fig. 4
shows a schematic image of a temperature control system.

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 International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (ICECOS) 2019

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Arduino Nano Relay DC fan
A. Testing sensor nodes
During testing, Lattepanda sends data from all node
sensors to ThingSpeak every 30 minutes using the POST
Peltier method. Data sent is air temperature, air humidity and soil
moisture. We can see the graph of the results of sending
Fig. 3. Temperature control system block diagram
data in Fig. 6.
In Fig. 6, there is a range of data sent to the cloud. The
range of temperature data seen is 25 oC to 34 oC. The range
of data for air humidity is 80% to 84%. While the range of
data for soil moisture is 50% to 80%.

Fig. 4. Schematic image of the temperature control system

E. The design of miniature mushroom cultivation fields.

In this study, the mushroom fields themselves were
designed to facilitate the experiment. Mushroom house
consists of several sensor nodes. The size of each
mushroom house is 70 cm x 30 cm x 40 cm and is designed Fig. 5. Mushroom Cultivation Miniature Design
using wood with a wire or iron floor so that the water flow
is not hampered. The design of mushroom houses can be
seen in Fig. 5.

Temperature Humidity

Soil moisture

Fig. 6. Graph on Sensor Node 1

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 International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (ICECOS) 2019

Temperature Humidity

Soil moisture

Fig. 7. Graph on Sensor Node 2

For node 2, the data received can be seen in Fig. 7. The The status of controlling the temperature control system
range of temperature data seen is 26 oC to 30 oC. The range is also monitored on the web page so that it can be seen
of data for air humidity and soil moisture for node 2 is the whether the temperature control system works within the
same as node 1, which is 80% to 84% for air humidity and specified temperature range. When the temperature control
50% to 80% for soil moisture. system works the graph in the application will show
number 1, while when the cooling system is not working
B. Testing the temperature control system
then the numbers in the graph will show the number 0. Fig.
The temperature control system used is using Peltier 9 shows the temperature control status.
and DC fan. The temperature control system uses a 1
channel relay which will be activated by Arduino and
Lattepanda. Control and reading of sensor data in this
experiment is carried out every 1 minute. The temperature
control system will be activated when the temperature
exceeds 29 oC. The test results data will be displayed on the
serial monitor on the Arduino IDE. The temperature control
Control status

system model can be seen in Fig. 8.

Fig. 9. Temperature control status

Fig. 8. Cooling system

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 International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (ICECOS) 2019
C. Experimental results
After conducting an experiment for approximately 20 days,
the results of the growth of oyster mushrooms were seen.
Oyster mushrooms in cultivation fields with temperature
control grow faster than compared to mushrooms in
cultivation fields without control. At week 1 there was no
significant difference between the oyster mushrooms in the
control cultivation field compared to the untreated
mushrooms. Then in the 2nd week in the cultivation field
with control, the oyster mushroom has begun to show signs
of growth because in general baglog is already white and
the mushroom part is still very small. Whereas in the
cultivation field without treatment it has begun to turn
white at the top of the baglog but there is no visible part of
the mushroom body. Then at week 3, oyster mushrooms
have grown even though they have not met the criteria of a
good mushroom because they are not perfectly white.
Whereas in cultivated fields without treatment, baglog is
already white and already seen a small portion of
mushrooms as the forerunner of the oyster mushroom that
will grow. Fig. 10 is the condition of the oyster mushroom
with control and Fig. 11 is the condition of the oyster
mushroom without control.
IV. CONCLUSION
From the results of testing and implementation that has
been done, it can be concluded that monitoring data can be
sent to cloud services to be seen from web pages. Cooling
system (temperature control) can also work in accordance
with the desired temperature. From the experiments
conducted it can also be concluded that the cultivation of
oyster mushroom with temperature control will be more
effective than the oyster mushroom field without
temperature control.
Fig. 10. Oyster mushroom conditions with temperature control
Fig. 11. Oyster mushroom condition without temperature control
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V. FUTURE WORK
In further research, a monitoring system will be
developed by designing mobile-based applications for
remote monitoring. This is supported because ThingSpeak
provides an Application Programming Interface (API) to
get monitoring data.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors are grateful to the Universitas Sumatra
Utara for supporting this research. We also thank all the
lecturers and staff of the Computer Laboratory and the
Arrangement of the Department of Electrical Engineering
at the Universitas Sumatra Utara who have helped this
research.
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