Bengaluru students develop farm monitoring technology

The 'Hydroponics Monitor' developed by a student from Atria University, Hebbal. 

A student team from a private varsity has developed ‘Hydroponics Monitor’, an Internet Of Things (IoT)-based system to monitor plant and nutrient supplements.

Hydroponics is a farming technique wherein plants are grown in water and nutrients without the help of soil. This method of farming will get more yield than soil-based agriculture and reduces the use of pesticides.

The student team from the Atria University in Hebbal that developed the technology on its campus said the Hydroponics Monitor can be deployed easily either at home or at one’s workplace.

The group consists of five students from the fourth-year computer science and electronics and communication engineering courses.

“We were always fascinated by the potential impact of technology in the domain of agriculture,” said Surya Murugan from the team. “We particularly came across a few hydroponic farms in our locality that faced problems due to labour-intensive processes and lack of real-time monitoring. This motivated us to build a solution to manage an urban farm with least possible human intervention.”

Dinakaran P, another member of the team, which also comprised of John Karamchand, Ashok Patel and Anil T, said the cloud-based system enables the user to control and monitor any farm from any part of the world.

“The user can access the system through a mobile phone or the web” Dinakaran said.

“We wanted to ensure that our design is scalable, reliable and simple. We’ve achieved this through technology,” Patel said. “We use machine learning models to analyse plant growth and provide real-time feedback to the growers.”

Patel also added that the team has used Edge ML techniques to achieve quick and efficient feedback through the growing cycle.

Varsity authorities have also said they have plans to grow hydroponics plants in their campus to revive dead spaces.