GUNTUR: Lack of knowledge and availability of technology has driven a 21-year-old youngster to develop an agro-farming sensor system that can detect the temperature, humidity and temperature of the soil and automatically water it accordingly. Uday Durga Prasad, a third-year B.Tech student of Acharya Nagarjuna University, belongs to a small hamlet in the Srikakulam district.
On what motivated him to take up the project, Uday said, “Most people in my village are dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. Though smart agriculture has been in practice for over a decade now, farmers in our region remain unaware of the techniques and follow the same old practices, which further affects their crop productivity and profits. So, when I got a chance to address the issue, I tried to find a solution and do something that could help my people.”
During his visit to the farms, he observed that most farmers did not have the knowledge of the amount of water needed for the crop. Another major problem he observed was water logging, which adversely effects the growth of the crop.
Watering the crop excessively can result in a drop in yield, Uday explained. Keeping this issue in mind, he decided to work on tracking water requirement for crops based on the climatic factors. Uday, along with his three classmates Rajesh, Raviteja and Jyothsna, worked on the project. With the help of Digital Temperature and Humidity (DHT) level sensors, they were successfully able to identify temperature and humidity, regularise pressure aptitude with BMP280 sensor, and moisture sensor to supply only required water to the crop.
Elaborating on the technicalities of the project, Uday explained that all sensors were connected by developing Arduino integrated development environment (IDE) in Internet of Things. The solid test is conducted on a field to measure the soil parameters like fertility rate, nutrients, absorption of water capacity, crop suitability and others.
“Based on the type of soil and test reports, we calculate requirement of water and nutrients for a crop during a period of time. Data can be collected through the sensors and accordingly water and nutrients is given to the crop. This system also tracks the growth of the crop so that the farmer can identify the problem and immediately get the required help and rake in more profits,” he added.
Uday’s project was very well-received during the academic exhibition conducted at Acharya Nagarjuna University and currently his team is working on making the apparatus cost-effective. “Our intention is to help farmers. So we are working on reducing the cost and making it more user-friendly, so that a number of farmers can get benefit from it,” he added.