2023 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Smart Communication (AISC)
Design & Development of IOT based Vertical
Farming Monitoring System
2023 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Smart Communication (AISC) | 979-8-3503-2230-9/23/$31.00 ©2023 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/AISC56616.2023.10085566
Krishanu Kundu Soubhagya Sharma
Dept. of Electronics & comm. Engg Dept. of Electronics & comm. Engg
G.L.Bajaj Institute of Technology G.L.Bajaj Institute of Technology
&Management &Management
Greater Noida, India Greater Noida, India
krishanukundu08@gmail.com ec19129@glbitm.ac.in
Raveendra Muddineni
Advanced R&D and RF Centre
Rapidtek Technology Inc
New Taiapei,Taiwan
muddineniravi962@gmail.com
Abstract— The practice of vertical farming has gained
popularity in peak development nations. Vertical farming is
challenging to implement, though, because even little
modifications to the environment can have a significant impact
on the effectiveness and caliber of farming operations. As a
result, the purpose of this paper is to offer a monitoring system
for vertical farming that will assist in keeping track of the
physical conditions of crops. The microcontroller will receive
the data from the many sensors utilized in this system as either
analogue input or digital input. After that, microcontroller will
analyze the data and upload it to the Cloud. Additionally, the
system will keep track of the location of the active equipment,
making maintenance easier in the event that something breaks
down. It is anticipated that the culture of vertical farming would
develop, leading to a considerable rise in crop output and
quality.
Keywords— Vertical Farming, Internet of Things;
I. INTRODUCTION
Cultivating crops in vertical layers is known as "vertical
farming.” It typically employs controlled-environment
agriculture, which aims to maximise plant development, as
well as soilless farming techniques such hydroponics,
aquaponics & aeroponics. In addition to buildings, freight
containers, tunnels, and abandoned mine shafts, vertical
farming systems are frequently housed in other types of
structures. More than 30 hectares of active vertical
agriculture will exist worldwide by the year 2025.Dickson
Despoiler first put out the current idea of vertical farming in
1999. The main advantage of using vertical farming
techniques is the better crop yield that comes with a smaller
unit amount of land need. As crops do not occupy same pieces
of land when growing, there is an improved capacity to
cultivate a wider range of crops at once. Because crops are
cultivated interior, products too are weather-resistant, which
reduces the amount of harvests lost as a result of unusually
severe or unpredictable weather. Vertical farming has less of
an influence on the local flora and animals and aids in their
preservation because it only consumes a tiny quantity of land.
The population of the planet is growing more quickly. By
2030, the population of the globe is projected to be over 8.5
billion [1], and by 2050, it may potentially reach 9.7 billion
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Authorized licensed use limited to: AMRITA VISHWA VIDYAPEETHAM AMRITA SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING. Downloaded on April 04,2024 at 07:11:46 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
Bharat Bhardwaj
Dept. of Electronics & comm. Engg
G.L.Bajaj Institute of Technology
&Management
Greater Noida, India
ec19003@glbitm.ac.in
Amrita Rai
Dept. of Electronics & comm. Engg
G.L.Bajaj Institute of Technology &Management
Greater Noida, India
amritaskrai@gmail.com
[2,3]. Numerous issues, such as climate change, water
shortage, and the restricted amount of land due to growing
urbanisation, will have an impact on the difficulties faced by
reliable food demands [3]. Agriculture research has taken
front stage [4]. The smart farming paradigm [5, 6] uses
cutting-edge platforms like IOT, distributed computing, and
cloud computing to implement intelligent technological
improvements in agriculture. Vertical agriculture may be
used to address the issue of urban farming, that has limited
access towards both land and water [7]. Advancement of IoT-
based intelligent systems showcased their importance in
vertical crop production [11,12,13] and vertical farming
models [8,9,10]. They all have been done to transform the
idea of the traditional agricultural company into a futuristic
agriculture format from the perspectives of precision and
smart agriculture [2,14]. With the support of transmitting data
technologies that can stream data fast, machine learning aims
to develop computational artificial intelligence approaches
that can access a range of data (text, numbers, images, videos,
and audio) [15]. In order to ensure crop quality & quantity
independent of climate, soil texture, or the effects of climate
variation, vertical farming offers several options to integrate
genetic and environmental advancements [10]. Through
pollution protection and modification, it is possible to
produce customized or functional food from basic foods [16].
In terms of environmental, social, as well as economic
stability, vertical farming provides several benefits over
horizontal rice field cultivation. The requirement for soil-
founded cultivation is largely being challenged by new high-
tech cultivation techniques, such as hydroponic systems,
aeroponics, and aquaponics [17]. These techniques also offer
a practical alternative for cultivating crops in municipal
settings, where space is at a premium and on-time product
delivery is constantly in demand [8]. IOT[18,19] as well as
AI [20] upon ML algorithms [15] were employed in research
to gain the technology needed to attain this aim, at a cheap
cost, and to help turn huge data into knowledge [21].In order
to create intelligent as well as precise agricultural processes
using IoT, a collection of sensing devices, along with temp,
brightness, soil humidity, nutrition, and a variety of
supporting sensors, must be used. These sensors must be
continuously monitored as well as obtain data through all the
data transmission path [22].
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 2023 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Smart Communication (AISC)

II. SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS

Technology adoption in agriculture is currently at levels

never seen. Farming’s future appears to be brightly
illuminated by several developing technologies. IoT was
originally considered an emergent agrotechnology, but it has
already moved into the mainstream due to widespread usage.
Kevin Ashton, first used the phrase "Internet of Things" in
1999 when delivering a presentation. With the help of radio-
frequency identification (RFID) tags, Ashton's presentation
for P&G aimed to better manage the supply chain by keeping
track of each item's location and available stock. In 2000, LG
Electronics released the Internet Digital DIOS, a refrigerator
that was linked to the internet riding the RFID wave. The goal
of IOT based smart agricultural devices is to automate
irrigation systems and use sensors to monitor crop areas.
Therefore, farmers and related brands may readily and
conveniently check on the state of the fields from any
location. Current work focuses on vertical farming with the
utilization of IOT concept.
Presented design comprises of major components like
Arduino uno, WIFI Module, Moisture Sensor, Light Sensor,
Temperature Sensor. In 2010, Arduino.cc released the Fig. 1. Block Diagram
Arduino Uno, an open-source microcontroller board based on
the Microchip ATmega328P.The board features 6 analogue
I/O pins besides 14 digital I/O pins and is programmable
employing Arduino IDE. Although it supports 7-20 volts
supply, also it can be supplied power using USB connection.
Data transmission and reception over Wi-Fi are handled by
wifi modules They are most frequently applied to the internet
of things. ESP8266 WiFi Module allows any microcontroller
to connect to a WiFi network. The said protocol stack is
capable of offloading complete WiFi networking tasks from
some other application processor or hosting an application.
An AT instruction set firmware is pre-programmed into each
ESP8266 module. Thanks to its strong on-board processing
and storage capabilities, this module may be connected to Fig. 2. Hardware Circuit
sensors as well as other application-specific devices through
its GPIOs with a least of upfront coding and runtime loading. III. SOFTWARE SPECIFICATION
It only needs a tiny amount of additional circuitry because to The Arduino IDE comes with a text editor that supports
the top standard of on-chip integration, in addition the front- scripting, a text console, a navigating bar with buttons for
end module is designed to take up little room on the PCB. The basic operations, and various menus. To upload programmes
ESP8266 also has Bluetooth co-existence interfaces and and interact with the Arduino hardware, it establishes a
APSD enabling Services and Applications. A resistive soil connection. All Arduino & Arduino-compatible
moisture sensor estimates the soil's moisture levels by microcontroller boards capable of being programmed and
utilizing the correlation between electrical resistance as well uploaded using the Arduino IDE are referred to as "Arduino-
as water content. Photodetectors, often known as compatible coding." Program writing for Arduino boards is
photosensors, are electromagnetic radiation or light sensors. carried out in "C." The AVR microcontrollers used inside
There are many different types of photodetectors, and they Arduino boards typically programmed using a subset of C,
can be grouped according to their modes of detection, such as just like other microcontrollers. These subsets are referred to
optoelectronic effects, or according to other performance as "Embedded C" in general since they are used for
indicators, such spectrum response. A temperature sensor programming embedded controllers. Arduino is programmed
monitors the temperature of its surroundings and few of them using a subset of the C programming language, which only
need to be in close proximity to the object they are contains conventional C capabilities that the Arduino can
monitoring, whereas other temperature sensors gauge an support. One of most preferred programming language for
object's temperature indirectly. IR sensors detect an object's creating electronic devices is embedded C. Every electronic
IR energy and transmit a signal to an electronic circuit. A system's processor is linked to embedded software.
humidity sensor is a device that measures the amount of ThingSpeak is a free, open-source platform that enables
moisture in the surrounding air or particles. These measured communication between users and internet-connected
parameters can be used to calculate humidity using physical devices. It facilitates access to data, retrieval, and logging by
principles, or more specifically by calibrating against a providing an API for both social network websites and
reference standard. mobile devices. ThingSpeak was first presented by ioBridge
in 2010 to support IoT applications. With ThingSpeak, we
can construct advanced event-based email notifications that

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 2023 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Smart Communication (AISC)

are triggered based on data from your connected devices,

store and analyse information in the cloud without
establishing web servers, and more.
IV. METHODOLOGY
In current work four sensors to measure moisture in the
soil, light, humidity, and temperature. A temperature sensor
is used to detect the surrounding air's temperature. The
Arduino receives the reading from the sensor. The Arduino
has several relays linked to it. The Arduino would send a
signal to turn on the fan if the temperature was above or
below the predetermined value. LDR sensors are used to
detect the quantity of sunlight produced inside a room. The
Arduino receives the reading from the sensor. The Arduino Fig. 5. Humidity Graph Plot
would send a signal to a switch on the relay that would, in
real-time, emit mercury that can act as sunshine if the sun's
brightness is below the set value. For demonstration
purposes, authors have used an LED strip light. the humidity
sensor is used to detect soil humidity. The Arduino would
turn on the exhaust to decrease the humidity and open the
water outlet to boost the moisture of the soil if the humidity
value shown by the sensor is higher than the specified value
or if the moisture of the soil decreases. For demonstration
purposes, authors have attached a DC motor in the location
designated for a water outlet. These parameters' real-time
data are supplied to the IoT module.
The ESP8266 (Wi-Fi Module) chip is used to connect a
device to the Wi-Fi network, establish a connection, and
deliver data. Data sensed by these sensors is subsequently
transferred to the Internet of Things. WiFi module needs to Fig. 6. Soil Moisture Graph Plot
be connected to either a Wi-Fi zone or a hotspot.

Fig. 3. Experimental Set Up

Fig. 7. Light Intensity Graph Plot
The exhaust will be turned off when the humidity drops
below 50%.

Fig. 4. LCD display with humidity at 49 percent.

The ambient humidity was recorded by DHT 11 sensor, and

Fig. 8. Temperature Graph Plot
the reading reflected on Thinspeak.com.

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 2023 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Smart Communication (AISC)
V. CONCLUSION
Current work’s goal is to develop and construct a
workable prototype for monitoring & controlling vertical
farming. A step-by-step process has been used in the design
of the IoT-controlled system [23] for monitoring as well as
controlling 4 critical plant growth factors, i.e., temperature,
humidity, moisture of soil along with light intensity. Results
have demonstrated that the system's efficacy is highly
dependable and accurate. At the same time proposed system
has effectively addressed a few disadvantages of the old
systems by consuming less power, requiring less upkeep, and
being simpler while yet offering a versatile and precise
method of regulating the atmosphere.
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