Internet of Things (IoTs) based hydroponic lettuce farming with solar panels

Abstract

Every 1,000 kilograms of temperate lettuce produced by commercial hydroponic farming consumes 21.2 kW-Hr per crop approximately. The solar panel technologies have been considered as an alternative way to serve as a sustainable energy. However, a big problem of solar panel usage is their costliness. To get the most benefit of the solar panels, an IoT based transpiration leaf sensor has been presented as a main part for the solar panel based hydroponic system. Unlike the external factor based sensors such humidity sensors, temperature sensors, light intensity sensor, the internal factors based sensor like transpiration leaf sensor can detect and monitor the internal change of lettuce plant in real-time. According to the direct calculation, 30 set of solar panels with batteries (300 Watts and 100 A-Hr per set) would be used as the sustainable power supply for 800 square meters of a hydroponic farm. Absolutely, the cost of such the solar panels is 250% of hydroponic system cost. On the other side, the proposed IoT based technique can determine the suitable duty cycle in real-time. At the same area, the only 10 set of solar panels with batteries would be used when the proposed IoT based hydroponic system is considered.