Implementing a Wireless Sensor Network with Multiple Arduino-Based Farming Multi-Sensor Tool to Monitor a Small Farm Area Using ESP32 Microcontroller Board

The Philippines is an agricultural country and in today’s commercial agriculture, technology plays an important role in the development of different sectors of farm management, especially in resource utilization. This paper focuses on implementing a deployable wireless sensor network with multiple nodes centered in an ESP32 microcontroller board, wherein each sensor node has its own multiple sensors, using the ESP-WIFI-MESH protocol, which arranges the sensor nodes in a scalable, self-forming, self-healing, and autonomous mesh network topology for small farm-area monitoring. The input needed for this research are the plant growth parameters which include soil moisture, temperature, relative humidity, and ambient sunlight intensity; they will be obtained by the various sensors connected to a sensor node. The output is a collection of historical data to be displayed to and analyzed by farmers or other relevant groups. A node separation distance tested up to 100 meters can be achieved with RSSI of −88dB. The paper also includes calibrations and testing to improve the capabilities of each node for 10 trials each, wherein the soil moisture has an $\text{RMSE}=2.55\%$ and $\text{SD}=1.30\%$, the ambient sunlight intensity has $\text{RMSE}=4.12$ lux and $\text{SD}=4.84$ lux, the temperature has $\text{RMSE}=1.31{\circ}\text{C}$ and $SD=0.50{\circ}\text{C}$, and lastly, for the relative humidity have an $\text{RMSE}=1.73\%$ and $\text{SD}=0.96\%$. The power consumption of each of the nodes in the system is 0.865W, wherein an average current draw of 173mA drawn from a power supply with a rated capacity of 10,000mAh. The sensor nodes can last for up to 57.3 hours, but the power supply is charged during daytime with the help of solar panels.