TY - JOUR
T1 - Automatic Water Control System and Environment Sensors in a Greenhouse
AU - Hilal, Yousif Yakoub
AU - Khessro, Montaser Khairie
AU - van Dam, Jos
AU - Mahdi, Karrar
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2022/4/1
Y1 - 2022/4/1
N2 - Iraqi greenhouses require an active microcontroller system to ensure a suitable microclimate for crop production. At the same time, reliable and timely Water Consumption Rate (WCR) forecasts provide an essential means to reduce the amount of water loss and maintain the environmental conditions inside the greenhouses. The Arduino micro-controller system is tested to determine its effectiveness in controlling the WCR, Temperature (T), Relative Humidity (RH), and Irrigation Time (IT) levels and improving plant growth rates. The Arduino micro-controller system measurements are compared with the traditional methods to determine the quality of the work of the new control system. The development of mathematical models relies on T, RH, and IT indicators. Based on the results, the new system proves to reliably identify the amount of WCR, IT, T, and RH necessary for plant growth. A t-test for the values from the Arduino microcontroller system and traditional devices for both conditions show no significant difference. This means that there is solid evidence that the WCR, IT, T, and RH levels for these two groups are no different. In addition, the linear, two-factor interaction (2FI), and quadratic models display acceptable performance very well since multiple coefficients of determination (R2 ) reached 0.962, 0.969, and 0.977% with IT, T, and RH as the predictor variables. This implies that 96.9% of the variability in the WCR is explained by the model. Therefore, it is possible to predict weekly WCR 14 weeks in advance with reasonable accuracy.
AB - Iraqi greenhouses require an active microcontroller system to ensure a suitable microclimate for crop production. At the same time, reliable and timely Water Consumption Rate (WCR) forecasts provide an essential means to reduce the amount of water loss and maintain the environmental conditions inside the greenhouses. The Arduino micro-controller system is tested to determine its effectiveness in controlling the WCR, Temperature (T), Relative Humidity (RH), and Irrigation Time (IT) levels and improving plant growth rates. The Arduino micro-controller system measurements are compared with the traditional methods to determine the quality of the work of the new control system. The development of mathematical models relies on T, RH, and IT indicators. Based on the results, the new system proves to reliably identify the amount of WCR, IT, T, and RH necessary for plant growth. A t-test for the values from the Arduino microcontroller system and traditional devices for both conditions show no significant difference. This means that there is solid evidence that the WCR, IT, T, and RH levels for these two groups are no different. In addition, the linear, two-factor interaction (2FI), and quadratic models display acceptable performance very well since multiple coefficients of determination (R2 ) reached 0.962, 0.969, and 0.977% with IT, T, and RH as the predictor variables. This implies that 96.9% of the variability in the WCR is explained by the model. Therefore, it is possible to predict weekly WCR 14 weeks in advance with reasonable accuracy.
KW - Arduino microcontroller
KW - environment
KW - greenhouses
KW - models
KW - sensors
U2 - 10.3390/w14071166
DO - 10.3390/w14071166
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85128463369
SN - 2073-4441
VL - 14
JO - Water
JF - Water
IS - 7
M1 - 1166
ER -