Farmo-matics
Aeroponic technique among all other techniques allows the growing of plants without the use of pesticide as it is disease free and will require less water and land. The plants tend to grow faster and absorb more nutrients in aeroponic as they are exposed more to oxygen and there is direct spraying o
2025-06-28 16:32:34 - Adil Khan
Farmo-matics
Project Area of Specialization Mechatronics EngineeringProject SummaryAeroponic technique among all other techniques allows the growing of plants without the use of pesticide as it is disease free and will require less water and land. The plants tend to grow faster and absorb more nutrients in aeroponic as they are exposed more to oxygen and there is direct spraying of nutrients to the roots.
Our system comprises of two parts one is vertical tower and second is controlled environment box. We build two vertical towers with a capacity of 40 plants and below those towers there is a tank or reservoir for the nutrients. The nutrient water with the help of a motor flow through a pipe to the top of towers where there is a disk in which we make holes so that the nutrient water flow through the holes to the roots of plants which will help plants to grow faster. The controlled environment box is totally isolated which means there will be no interference from outside. We will control the whole environment inside the box by placing different sensors and actuators so that we can monitor and control the environment according to plant. The plant we are targeting at first is spinach which has temperature ranges from 1o C to 25oC and the humidity required to grow it perfectly is 40% to 60%, while the intensity of light required is 15,000 – 20,000 lux and CO2 and O2 levels are also needs to be maintained. For these conditions we placed sensors Dht11 (humidity and temp), Lux sensor and actuators Misting fan, Refrigeration system, Grow led, Nutrient Pump motor so that we can make a perfect environment for our plant. This system has a potential of revolutionizing production industry in many countries. Its main beneficiaries are agricultural sector, private investors, hotel chains, public-private partnerships, corporate hospitals, retail chains etc.
Research Objectives:
To write a Research paper
To write a Patent
Academic Objectives:
One undergrad FYP would come out of it
Commercial Objectives:
To use it in Agricultural sector
To use it in corporate sectors
To use it on larger scale for private investors
Other Objectives:
To build a system which is truly automatic.
To make farming easier to manage by controlling the whole system with Raspberry-Pi.
To eliminate the waste of vegetables during harvest caused by diseases because our system is disease free.
To eliminate seasonal dependency by controlling the climate within the green house.
To increase the frequency of harvest as well as profit.
Increased profit allows for re investment and expansion.
Substantial expansion create more jobs and raises the standard of living.
To use less Nutrient and water by creating closed loop system.
To make a system self-contained and clean enough to be kept indoors in ones living space.
To ensure that water damage and odors are to be completely eliminated or impossible to leak.
To apply on small, medium and industrial large scale.
The main of this project is to develop and propose structures, ways of monitoring, watering and plant care that are flexible for the diverse types of crops so that the country could reduce technology dependency from overseas.
Our project “Farmo-Matics” aims to provide an artificial environment for plants where they can grow easily without any environmental restrictions. We build two vertical towers to do vertical farming so in that way we would be able to do more farming in less occupied area and moreover, we are applying Aeroponic technique to do soil-less farming which is beneficial in many ways like early yield, no worries about pests and insects that could do harm to the plants and while applying this technique we also would be monitoring the pH and TDS of nutrient water so as to replace them before they are of no use. “Artificial Environment”, for creating such an environment we would be managing different parameters that includes temperature, humidity, light, CO2 and O2 levels. Now coming to the point, different plants need different ranges for these parameters and the plant we are targeting at first is spinach which is finely grown in during winters when the temperature ranges from 1o C to 25oC and the humidity required to grow it perfectly is 40% to 60%, while the intensity of light required is 15,000 – 20,000 lux and CO2 and O2 levels are also needs to be maintained. For temperature, we are installing refrigeration system in our enclosed cover that has been made for isolation. In summers, when ambient temperature is 30+ oC, we will lower the internal temperature of our enclosed cover with the help of refrigeration system but we will not set a point where the internal temperature is going to be set because plants doesn’t need a set point, what they need is variance but defined under certain limits and same goes for other parameters. For humidity and CO2 and O2 levels, we are installing two misting fans at the upper side of our cover which will do the misting to humidify the internal environment under pre – defined limits ( 40% to 60 %) and will exhaust-in the air to maintain CO2 and O2 levels and there would be one exhaust-out fan at the lower side of the cover in order to exhaust-out internal air and moisture also, in this way both humidity and temperature will get disturbed but will stay in the defined limits. All these fans have caps over them which will just open whenever they get turned on, there are numerous bacteria in air and some of them are called Plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) are very much beneficial for our plant growth, so in that way they will also be get added. And for artificial lights, we will install grow L.E.Ds and will also limit their intensity under the defined limits.
Benefits of the ProjectBenefits of aeroponic
Benefits of vertical farming
Benefits of climate control
Benefits of remote-control technology
Benefits of nutrient water cycling
Benefits of tower
The very highlighting part of our project is that we are going towards vertical farming, in this farming method we would be growing our plants in vertical manner like one above another so through vertical farming we have increased our quantity 5 times than that of traditional farming which is one of the core benefit of our project and we can also increase it more by increasing the size of our tower.
We are using aeroponic technique to grow our plants. This technique allows us to grow our plants without soil, it is completely soilless farming, and we would be supplying nutrients to the roots of the plant directly through our designed mechanism.
We would be controlling the climate for plants with the help of sensors, actuators and controller, through this we would able to grow different plants in different season which we can grow any plant with the help of controlled environment which is our main goal and a main benefit.
We are going towards remote controlling so through remote controlling we would be able to monitor and maintain the condition of plant in real time manner.
We have designed our project in a way that the nutrient water will not waste even a single drop. We are reusing the nutrients until it is totally absorbed by plants.
We made two vertical tower of about 3 ft. and we would be placing our plant around the tower in vertical manner it has also helped us in increasing the quantity and the less the expense of supplying the nutrients through this tower we are able to supply the nutrients properly to the roots.
Technical Details of Final DeliverableTechnical details of pump motor
Technical details of sensors
Dht11 (humidity and temp)
Lux sensor
Technical details of actuators
Misting fan
Refrigeration system
Grow led
Nutrient Pump motor
Technical details of grow led
Technical details of remote controlling
Our Final deliverable are
Mounting the sensors and actuator
Circuit designing and fabrication
Controlling parameters
Controlling climate
In sensors we would be mounting the dht11 sensor for monitoring the temperature and humidity and some lux sensors to monitor the intensity of the grow lights because each plant need specific range of lights and we are placing the PH and TDS sensor in nutrients which will tell us about the level of PH and TDS in real time.
In actuators we are making a small size of refrigeration system to low down the temperature to the required range and we placing 2 misting fan which will provide humidity to our system and controlling the fresh air and 1 exhaust fan which will help us to vary our temperature accordingly because in real scenario whole day temperature doesn`t remain constant it varies. And we are mounting the Grow light which will cover both tower from each side directly towards plants so that plant can get their required range of light intensity and the lux sensor will detect the level of intensity. On the other hand we have placed two submersible pump motor in the nutrient tank to lift up the nutrient water to the upper most level of the towers so that in could pass through the roots of all plants when it drops down from the spreading disk which will work like a shower.
And in the circuit designing we would basically control our system through raspberry pi so all the sensors and actuator which we have discussed above will be connected to the pi through their individual required circuits. We would be implementing the PID to control our each parameters and at the end of the day we would transfer our whole data to android application for monitoring and remote controlling purpose.
| Item Name | Type | No. of Units | Per Unit Cost (in Rs) | Total (in Rs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total in (Rs) | 64055 | |||
| Forms | Miscellaneous | 24 | 10 | 240 |
| Tower Pipe | Equipment | 1 | 2200 | 2200 |
| Inner pipe | Equipment | 1 | 1300 | 1300 |
| Drill bit | Equipment | 1 | 460 | 460 |
| Silicone gun, 40 angles, pvc solution, sand papers | Miscellaneous | 1 | 1150 | 1150 |
| Elfy | Miscellaneous | 3 | 20 | 60 |
| Tape | Miscellaneous | 2 | 30 | 60 |
| Pvc solution | Miscellaneous | 1 | 420 | 420 |
| Netcups | Equipment | 5 | 50 | 250 |
| Transport | Miscellaneous | 2 | 500 | 1000 |
| Pipe column support | Equipment | 1 | 470 | 470 |
| Coco peat | Miscellaneous | 1 | 300 | 300 |
| Nutrition tank | Equipment | 1 | 10000 | 10000 |
| Nutrition | Equipment | 1 | 3000 | 3000 |
| Netcups | Equipment | 45 | 45 | 2025 |
| Pump motor | Equipment | 2 | 1500 | 3000 |
| Controlled environment cover | Equipment | 1 | 13000 | 13000 |
| Screw | Miscellaneous | 24 | 30 | 720 |
| Tank holding frame | Equipment | 1 | 1400 | 1400 |
| Sensors | Equipment | 1 | 6000 | 6000 |
| Actuators | Equipment | 1 | 10000 | 10000 |
| Controller | Equipment | 1 | 7000 | 7000 |