Development of Hydroponic Control System by using Arduino for Agriculture

Abstract

Hydroponics is a word from a Greek word, “Hydropanos”. “Hydro” means water, and “Panos” means labor, meaning working water [1]. Hydroponics is a technique of growing a plant in water. Literally, this gardening method does not used soil. The hydroponics system will directly supply water and nutrients to the plants. The hydroponics is mouth feeding system for plant to grow. Water is critically important to hydroponic which helps to keep leaves from wilting by providing pressure to turgor cell on the cell wall. This cultivation technique provides plant with nutrients that pass through over their roots. Besides, hydroponics uses much less water than traditional soil farming as the water will be recycled and recirculated [2]. Development of HCS is an automated system purposely to control and maintain not only the solution condition but to fulfil hydroponics crop’s needs with less human assist. The system itself will maintain the solution pH, concentration and temperature. Besides, the system will control the surrounding humidity and condition too. The HCS aimed to improve the existing hydroponics system effectiveness and efficiency.