AI-Driven Hydroponic Systems for Lemon Basil

Hydroponics is a soilless plant cultivation method that uses a nutrient-rich water solution instead. Plant roots are suspended in a controlled environment so they are able to absorb in all the nutrients they require for optimal development. Artificial intelligence (AI) can be helpful for maximizing plant growth. Implementing IoT and AI for monitoring and controlling environmental factors can be helpful for farmers. Additionally, it offers a considerable amount of information about the surrounding environmental elements and related growth for research projects. In this study, Polyvinyl Chloride pipes with sealed ends were used to build a hydroponic system using the deep-water culture method. Each pipe and plant were given a unique number. Deep Water Culture is a sort of hydroponic system in which the roots of the plants are suspended in nutrient-rich water that is oxygenated through an air pump. The appropriate chemical requirements for preparing the nutrition solution were determined using Hydrobuddy, an open-source software. Additionally, a machine learning model was implemented to predict the height of the plants at different stages based on several factors, including pH levels, electrical conductivity, light intensity, and more. The Linear Regression model gave 72% accuracy while the Multi-Layer-Perceptron (MLP) gave around 79% accuracy. The dataset was taken from the Open Agriculture Foundation MIT-Media-Lab which was developed during their Food Computer Project.