Automatic shading of green house — Extension work

Optimum ecological environment is essential in optimal vegetation growing and maximized harvest revenues. In the traditional irrigation setup, agrarians monitor suitable climatic and environmental conditions for better output from the farm lands. The required climatic conditions vary from crop to crop. It has been observed that light intensity incident on a particular crop type does influence the productivity of a crop. Here in this endeavour, we have covered this aspect of farming. As mentioned previously, unlike most harvests, lesser intensity of light enhances growing of crops in few cases. For certain group of plants, intensely intensified light lead to intoxication and lousiness of growth. As prelude to this article we have studied different plant characteristics and their responses towards light concerning growth and yield. Based on that data, for different light sensitive crops, shading arrangements are provided to optimize productivity. The process is made automated freeing the farmers, aka human resources from constant vigil and enacting to the requirement. Here a motorized device will function as the Final Control Element (FCE) pulling over a translucent curtain over a particular crop type as soon as the sensor network fitted in the model senses excessive luminous intensity marked as undesirable or harmful for that particular yield. The actuator is driven by a logic designed on Arduino microcontroller. Sensors employed here are very rudimentary luxmeters and pyranometer with good accuracy and repeatability. The controller algorithm if finds the light intensity beyond optimum range, it commands the translucent shading mechanism to come into effect thus providing optimal lux environment. The procedure has shown tremendously good response as was expected on the onset. The work will revolutionize automation from a new perspective and cut down human effort to a significantly high level freeing one from constant monitoring on the yield. Thus we move one step closer towards automated farming.