IoT Hydroponics Project

Group 5Dominic PucciGarrick ServelloMatthew McCoy

Problem Statement

● Hydroponics is not user friendly● Most hydroponic systems are expensive● Wanted to create a system that would allow

anyone to practice hydroponics● Wanted to make this system reliable and

cheaper than the alternatives

Goals and Objectives

● Create a fully automated hydroponics system● System must be relatively cheap● System must be reliable● System must be efficient

General Architecture

The Technology

Deep Water Culture System

● Essentially just a container with water● Holds the plant pots● No pumping of water

Sensors

Electrical Conductivity meter

pH meter

EZOTM Circuits by Atlas Scientific

Raspberry Pi Shield

Partial Circuit Setup

Pumps

Software● Using Java as the main development language because Thingworx

supports Java very well.● Pi4J is used to interface with the Raspberry Pi. ● Pi4J allows us to easily use the UART port on the Raspberry pi to send and

receive data for both the Ph meter and Electrical Conductivity Meter.● Pi4J allows us to easily setup GPIO pins for turning our motors on and off● We use the Thingworx Micro Edge Server to send data from our pi to the

Thingworx platform● The Micro Edge Server basically just setups a Websocket to the Thingworx

platform to send data back and forth.● We poll the Ph and EC meter at regular intervals to send data to the

Thingworx platform.● The sensors had to be calibrated before they could correctly read values.

To do these we used a Python script and the pySerial library to send commands to the sensor for easy calibration.

UI -- Thingworx

● Receives data from an edge server running on the pi

● Can push data at any interval we want● Displays real-time values of pH and TDS● Stores and displays a history of pH and TDS

values in line graphs

UI -- Thingworx

Accomplishments

● Have successfully set up a DWC hydroponic system

● Have successfully interfaced pH and TDS sensors with the Pi

● Have successfully pushed pH and TDS values to ThingWorx in real time

Remaining Work

● Finish setting up the pumps● Set up decision making for when to turn the

pumps on and off● Mount all loose circuits

Business Potential

● Very marketable● As mentioned previously, hydroponics is hard!● People would rather buy a premade system than

spend a lot of time and money learning hydroponics manually

Suggestions for Future Development

● ThingWorx is still very limited● Try using a different web interface, or build one

from scratch● Implement some form of notification -- email or

otherwise● Develop a mounting case for all of the circuitry

Questions?