The Wait is OVER!!
The wait was long and the wait was hard. Day after day I used to see other challengers doing cool things with their kits while I used to haggle with Customs officials over the delivery details for my package. At one point I thought that I would not be able to take part in the challenge but then almost a month later I finally did receive the package and Oh boy!! It was one of the most wonderful packages I ever received from the community.
The packaging was great as usual and contained the Raspberry Pi 4 with 2GB of RAM, the Pimorini Enviro Hat, the Pimorini Automation hat and the Pimorini Hacker board
First things First
Research on available tech to grow plants indoors
The internet and especially online project communities are strewn with examples of how people can use low-cost solutions to automate the process of farming. There are countless success stories where farmers have successfully used Arduino to established a full-fledged automatic maintenance system. The concept is nothing new but a thorough study reveals that all of these applications essentially work on similar principles,ie. taking sensor data from environmental and soil moisture sensors and controlling a valve to regulate the flow of water. Period.
There are some startups that have taken the cause of growing plants indoors seriously but I personally find their approach tokenistic. What these IoT gardens do is they go one step beyond conventional hobby projects and integrate features like adaptive lighting, soil nutrient analysis and offboard maintenance. Most systems are really costy and only so-called eco-warriors would like to have one.
Talking about the farming industry in particular, it is much more serious and has moved much beyond just opening valves based on some data collected from sensors. Some novel techniques have been developed to grow plants indoors
Taking stock of means
What I have at my disposal is a Raspberry Pi, a pimorini hat with environmental sensors, one for basic circuitry, one for displaying parameters and high voltage interfacing. I also happen to have water sprayers, valves, servo motors and some ornamental plants in the garden. I also have a Husky Lens AI vision sensor which can be used for a variety of image processing tasks in combination with Raspberry Pi.
Idea
Based on the various architectures possible I have decided to go forward with the aeroponic system as it does not involve operating any valves or pumps which are difficult to assemble at home and in these trying times, you do not bring the trouble home by calling a professional. The aeroponic system also saves on water which is essential as not much water can be carried in a spacecraft. Another benefit is that no soil is needed and hence the weight of the setup is also very less and occupies less space all of which are ccritical design parameters in this do or die scenario. My project would focus on vertically stacking plants with roots floating in air, creating a mechanism for spraying water on the roots, monitoring the environmental conditions and regulating the pressure and light intensity accordingly by operating suitable devices. As an addition I also plan to use a 6 axis robotic arm to pick fruits and vegetables grown when suitable and place them in a basket. The robotic arm actuation would be based on image processing with the help of a Husky Lens AI camera.
Benefits
There are many benefits which my solution offers compared to other solutions available which are either costly or facilitate automatic maintenance in the name of it without actually doing anything constructive - which is the motive of the problem statement here - the sustenance of the crew is at stake.
Some benefits are -
- Monitoring ease
- Minimal use of water
- Minimal power draw
- Growth Monitoring
About me
I am an IoT enthusiast pursuing a major in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and a minor in Computer Science at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India. I have worked with a variety of MCUs including AVR, STM32, NRF, ESP and PIC to resolve a variety of issues faced in my projects. I have experience working with WiFi, BLE, cellular and LoRa protocols. I also have significant practical experience with single board computers like Raspberry Pi and lately the NVIDIA Jetson Nano. Alongside academics, I am also involved in research activities at two groups in campus.
At the Kharagpur Robosoccer Students Group(KRSSG), we develop autonomous soccer-playing robots to participate in Robocup SSL(https://www.robocup.org). I was part of the only INDIAN and only UNDERGRADUATE team to qualify for the main event at Bordeaux, France this year but unfortunately, we could not participate(you know why). I am part of the embedded team that works on the motor driver circuitry, communication systems, kicking mechanisms, swarm robotics modules and the control systems for the BLDC driven quad-omniwheeled team of robots.
In my two years here, I have –
• re-designed the communication architecture reducing latency in command execution
• designed efficient motor drivers
• designed power distribution modules
• implemented protection circuitry
• migrated controls from STM32 MCU to a Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA board
Future work includes a motor driver based on Field oriented control and implementation of genetic algorithms, advanced protection circuitry and robust communication
Find more @ https://www.krssg.in & https://www.github.com/krssg-robocup-ssl
At TeamKart, the Formula student team at my college, I lead the Electronics team. This season our electrical and electronics package was adjudged the best at Formula Bharat, the largest FS event in the world. I was involved in the design of vehicle dynamics sensors, wiring harness, Raspberry Pi-based datalogger, NRF based telemetry and ADAS. I also worked on developing an Android app to read telemetry data and a Matlab app for data analysis.
Our next project which I am working on while at home is to build India`s first driverless racecar and participate in Formula Student Germany. I am using a Xilinx Zynq board to implement the image processing algorithms to detect cones lining the track for vehicular movement and path planning.
Find more @ https://www.teamkart.org
Apart from these, I have done several electronics projects under renowned professors at my school in fields like computer vision, electric vehicle design, control systems and autonomous vehicles.
Currently, I am working remotely as an R&D intern at Kanan Park, an agri-tech startup where we are developing autonomous drones and rovers to aid data-driven agriculture. I am responsible for the drone and rover hardware design.
Here is the link to my Github – www.github.com/MoinakG2
In this Google drive link, you would find pictures and videos related to my projects - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ME0TPjtQNBISdJc8Guudh5YdF0x_RjzQ?usp=sharing
Also, please have a look at some hobby projects I have completed while at home during lockdown - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nn8MOoU1RR7vnB2VAaTPXHn7HoQr6hsuIITRKnWoL80/edit
