High-Level Project Summary
We created a means of farming which is fully automated and requires few peoples.It uses different sensors and website to get datas.And can communicate this data with all the components connected and the information can be displayed in mobile app.There are millions of people around the world with shortage of food. Especially Africa regardless of having desirable conditions the peoples are still dependent of AID. This is due to traditional and backward way of farming.With this project we expect to create a huge impact in people life by creating sufficient amount of food to all people and to level up humanity by focusing on more important things and creating happy world for every one!
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
The major thing on farming is irrigation. so made robotic car with sensors mounted on it to collect data around the farm. And also it is used for sowing seeds. This cars are controlled via our phone. And can remember any path taken.
We didn't make the sensors static because we want to get datas all across the farm with few sensors which reduces cost and makes it easy to control for farming.
Weather informations are displayed for that particular area from weather forecasting website. which is crucial mainly for moisture of soil.
We built automatic water sprayer and a water storage to water the crops which controlled by command from sensors and weather informations.
The water sprayer accepts data from a wifi communication with another wifi module.(ESP32 wifi module)
This wifi module is mounted with sensors to send the data to other wifi connected devices.
So it sends data to water sprayer to water the crops and based on the reading of soil moisture sensor and weather forecast informations like temperature, humidity and pressure. (Pressure is used to forecast when is expected to rain)
Therfore with the data received the water sprayer can be turn on and off automatically. And also can be controlled via mobile app.
The notifications are sent to devices about water sprayer.
The water storage is designed to be open and close accordingly to the data sent by the rain sensor. This helps not to lose water by evaporation.
All the the sensors, cars, water storage, water sprayer, pesticide sprinkler can communicate with each other via IOT platform.
In addition to that anyone can see what is happening to his farm on mobile app and can also control it manually if needed.
The NPK sensor information is the most essential to plant growth so the robotic car manages to apply the amount needed from the NPK sensor data. This helps to sustain soil fertility and Ph level. Consequently yielding surplus amount of crop with short amount of time with fewer peoples and few cost.
Finally we built a platform(more specifically website) where agricultural products are posted and where the farmer and market communicate.
in this platform transportation companies farmers and the market can make a deal online and that makes it efficient to deliver crops as well as other products.
Moreover the farmer can get pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers and other farming tools in this platform.
If we are able to implement this project in real world there is no doubt how humanity can be advanced. Since it requires few people and being able to provide food which is one of the fundamental needs of human being to all people across the globe, we humans can focus more on other things and use our brain and ability nature gifted us to live a better life and to make our world be a happy place for everyone.
By this means we hopefully expect fully automated high crop productivity that changes millions of life!
Materials used
Gear motors
Sevo motors
Motor drivers
Arduino boards
Wifi modules(esp32 and esp8266)
Resistive soil moisture sensor
DC motor pump
Rain drop sensor
Relay modules
Wheels
Other mechanical parts like wooden boards
Different wires
Software
Arduino IDE
Website building
Weather forecast
code
C++
Java script
CSS
Html
Notice
- We were not able to get NPK sensor because it was not available In our country
- We used resistive moisture sensor which will corrode after few weeks but if possible we would like to use capacitive soil moisture sensor which uses capacitors.
Space Agency Data
we used weather forecast, NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) runs global weather forecasts at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS). this helped us to predict what type of measurement to impose.
Also we used openWeatherMap.
Hackathon Journey
Living in Ethiopia with tremendous amount of natural resources and favorable clime, with 80% people living in agriculture, Ethiopia is still dependent of Food AID.
Our team has done several researches and we tried different approaches to solve this problem before.
We planned to use different tools, softwares, hardwares and we made deep researches to solve this issue.
And we came across "open science" challenge which is a perfect fit.
When we planned to start implementing our idea of this project, due to current circumstances of our country, the materials were so expensive . So we asked for material support from few places. as expected we got rejected. But we didn't give up and eventually Robox robotics and AI center gave us some materials. We also bought few and some were unavailable at all.
Our team has four members and each of us had different duties because we were in different schools and finally we incorporated all of them.
We want to first Thank GOD for helping us through all the journey. Next we want to thank Robox robotic and AI center for material support and for giving us the space needed to do our project.
And of course we want to thank NASA sapce apps for this opportunity. It gave us the courage to make our ideas become to reality.
This journey has been tough and amazing at the same time!
References
- https://www.weather-forecast.com/locations/Nasa/forecasts/latest
- OpenWeatherMap
- Several YouTube videos and books.
Tags
#smartfarming