PRE2024 3 Group20

Members

Name	Number	Study
Neesanth Murugesh	1777866	Electrical Engineering
Atreya Viswanathan	1781340	Electrical Engineering
Chenwei Gao	1789775	Electrical Engineering
Prannoy Kapoor	1785427	Electrical Engineering
Gaurav Sharma	1783297	Electrical Engineering

Introduction

Problem Statement and Objectives

Home automation systems, including automatic lighting and temperature control have recently become widely adopted in modern smart homes, to save energy and serve as a convenient alternative to manual controls. This promotes sustainability and convenience while also serving the needs of people who are unable to manage their homes independently, such as the elderly or disabled. Though the market for home automation is highly saturated with companies such as Google, Philips and Amazon designing sophisticated, there is a lack of automation systems for greenhouses and gardens. While they exist, our group believes that there is significant potential and a gap in the market for such a series of products, which monitor and automatically control certain parameters in gardens and greenhouses such that plants and crops remain healthy in the absence of human intervention.

A holistic approach that monitors parameters such as temperature, carbon dioxide concentrations, soil moisture, and light, can be used to control a series of actuators that act such that each of the parameters are optimized for the crops grown by the user. To accompany the system, a smartphone app can also be developed such that the user can customize the settings depending on their crops. A more thorough description of the features and functionality of the product is given in subsequent sections of this page. The problem statement or main objective of this project is “to design a series of products that demonstrate the possibility of the automation of greenhouses, promoting sustainability and convenience in agricultural domains”.  

Users and Target Audience

The target users of our greenhouse automation system are home gardeners. These people usually operate on a smaller scale, with planting within their personal gardens or within their house. These will require careful maintenance of their ecosystem making them a prime target audience.

Schools/Educational institutions are also a target audience for our system. They might make smaller versions of greenhouses in buildings for educational purposes. In these cases, an automated system could prove to be useful to maintain those projects.

Community garden groups are also a target audience as those gardens might require an automated system to be properly maintained as well. Since sometimes people might not always be able to properly maintain their plants on time.

The planned automation system will not target farmers and large-scale agricultural operations due to the sheer size of the needed coverage. This will likely result in very expensive tools to maintain the workspace.

Requirements of Users

The user requirements of an automated greenhouse system are customizable greenhouses fitted with multiple devices to control the greenhouse environment. Sensors with the ability to measure CO₂, humidity, temperature, soil moisture, and soil pH levels are required as an input to the system. Actuators to control the Windows, irrigation systems and heating systems are required to control the environment based on decisions made by the system. The system should set certain parameters such as temperature, soil moisture, humidity, and CO2 levels, based on the plants planted inside the greenhouse. The system then can use predicted weather patterns to further improve the efficiency of the greenhouse.

MoSCoW prioritization method

Must Have –

• Environment Monitoring – CO₂, temperature, humidity, soil moisture, and soil pH levels.
• Environment Controlling Systems – Irrigation Systems, Ventilation, and Heating.
• Continuous Monitoring – The system must monitor and control the environment in real time.

Should Have –

• Energy Management – Using electricity and water efficiently.
• Notifications to the User – Notify user if something is malfunctioning.
• Remote Access & Control – The user can monitor and control the greenhouse when on vacation or work.             

Could Have –

• Al Monitoring – The AI can use predicted weather forecast to further utilize the energy consumption.
• Plant based monitoring- The user enters the plants inside the greenhouse, the system uses existing research and databases to find the optimum environment conditions.

Will not Have –

• Pesticide Control – controlling pests and disease using AI powered Cameras.
• Water Quality Control – Checking the water for contamination.
• Automated Planting and Harvesting

Who's doing what?

Week 1

Name	Total	Break-down
Neesanth Murugesh		Attended kick-off (2h), group meeting (2h)
Atreya Viswanathan		Attended kick-off (2h), group meeting (2h)
Chenwei Gao		Attended kick-off (2h), group meeting (2h)
Prannoy Kapoor		Attended kick-off (2h), group meeting (2h)
Gaurav Sharma		Attended kick-off (2h), group meeting (2h)