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EEP T2 Team 4
- Gawain Yeo-Koh (222142U)
- Jonathan James Thomas (222666X)
- Yuvenidth Gerald (222990M)
Currently, Singapore imports more than 90% of produce from over 170 different countries. Only a small fraction of Singapore’s food supply is produced locally. The reliance on external food sources to supply the majority of Singapore’s food supply makes the country’s food security heavily dependent on the stability of trade relations and the global food market. For example, on 1 June 2022, Malaysia implemented an export ban of 3.6 million chickens to other countries every month, including Singapore. Because Singapore imports 34% of its chicken from Malaysia, this caused Singapore to experience a significant increase in chicken price and needs to source more chicken from other countries including Indonesia and Thailand. Hence, Singapore needs to develop a more sustainable supply of food through the growth of local food from urban farming to buffer the potential negative impacts of fluctuations in the food market on Singapore’s food security. Singapore aims to increase local food production from <10% in 2020 to 30% by 2030. A new product must be introduced to help increase the yield
Problem identificationHow can we create a system that can automatically monitor internal urban farm conditions so that urban farmers do not need to manually do it themselves?
Project introductionUrban Farming Overseer aims to help urban farmers by allowing them to quickly and remotely identify suboptimal conditions in urban farms and quickly identify & notify active personnel to arrange for more efficient maintenance to return these conditions back to optimal.
By using Urban Farming Overseer, we can measure the ammonia levels in fish farms, moisture levels in soil, and the overall temperature and humidity for urban farmers without needing them to regularly and manually measure these conditions in the urban farms. It also monitors the entry of personnel in the urban farms to ensure urban farmers can be remotely kept informed of on-site personnel.
This will increase the efficiency of urban farms as optimal conditions can be sustained more effectively with fewer deviations from optimal. This will increase the yield of local produce in Singapore. Furthermore, it will reduce the manpower necessary for the supervision of the urban farm, which in tandem reduces the expenses of the urban farms.
BackgroundFish farms have lower yield as ammonia in the water from fish waste accumulates to cause high levels of ammonia in the water which is toxic. This can cause batches of fishes to die.
Certain foreign plants cannot be grown or are grown less efficiently in Singapore due to inadequate pressure, temperature or humidity of the weather i.e lettuce.
Soil based vertical farms can experience mass deaths of crops as it is difficult to water the entire surface of the soil and consistently ensure sufficient water seeps to the roots of all the crops which may cause many crops to be lost.
More manpower is needed to regularly monitor the growth of plants and the health of the fishes to ensure optimal conditions are met which increases the expenses of urban farming and in tandem, the price of local produce.
Pest and disease outbreak can cause many crops to die and reduce the yield of local vegetables.
FeaturesNOTE:
- default threshold values are as follow:
- Temperature (20-30 degree Celsius)
- Humidity (70-90%)
- Moisture (<50%)
- Contamination Level (<=30%)
When temperature is below lower threshold
- Display image that temperature is too low
When temperature is above upper threshold
- Display image that temperature is too high
When Button A is pressed, angle unit can be used to change temperature thresholds
- Firstly, urban farmer gets option to select lower threshold using angle unit
- Secondly, urban farmer can press C to confirm his desired lower threshold
- Thirdly, urban farmer gets option to select upper threshold using angle unit
- Lastly, urban farmer can press C to confirm his desired upper threshold
When humidity is below lower threshold
- Display image that humidity is too low
When humidity is above upper threshold
- Display image that humidity is too high
When moisture is below threshold
- Display image that moisture is too low as wilting plant
- RGB unit turns from green to red
When contamination level is above 30%
- Display image that contamination level of ammonia in fish farm is too high
Detects total number of sensors that detected suboptimal condition
- If more sensors detect suboptimal conditions, m5stack speaker beeps more frequently
Information of internal conditions will be sent to EZdata cloud
- Every 2 minutes, information of internal condition values will be sent using EZdata to its cloud so that the values can then be displayed on urban farmers phones
When urban farmer uses RFID card scanner to log his presence in urban farm
- If the RFID is recognized to be an urban farmers card, name of urban farmer will be sent to EZdata and the farmer will be logged as being available in the farm facility and be reminded to wear sanitary equipment when maintaining plants. secondary m5stack blinks green and beeps
- If RFID is unrecognized, the LCD will say the person is not an authorized personnel to use the logging device. Secondary m5stack also blinks red and beeps
Monitoring of temperature and humidity
Plants that are not native to Singapore may not grow optimally in Singapore's weather, by monitoring and maintaining optimal internal temperature and humidity in urban farms for these plants, urban farmers can ensure these plants can be grown efficiently and locally without needing to rely on other countries for their production. This increases food production and the variety of produce that may be produced in Singapore.
Monitoring of Moisture
By monitoring moisture at certain points in the soil of urban farms, farmers can monitor when the plants lack water to grow optimally due to potential inconsistencies in the watering of plants. This allows farmers to carry out a follow-up watering in the event a plant did not receive enough water during the scheduled watering. By ensuring less death of crops due to insufficient water intake, more crops can be harvested, increasing crop yield and food production in Singapore.
Monitoring of Contamination
By monitoring the contamination levels of ammonia in the water of urban fish farms, urban farmers can be aware when ammonia levels from fish waste accumulates to unsafe levels, ensuring farmers are alerted to remove the ammonia, to ensure the fishes are not exposed to toxic levels of ammonia. This reduces the number of fish that die in urban fish farms, increasing the yield of fish from urban fish farms. In addition, by ensuring the survival of the fish, more ammonia produced from their waste can then be reused in the production of fertilizer(nitrates) using Hydro-Pure technology, which can be used with plants to increase rate of growth, further increasing local crop yield and local food production.
Picture Display on LCD
By displaying images on the m5stack LCD screen of current suboptimal conditions, urban farmers can easily identify the specific issues in urban farms without needing to manually measure the conditions beforehand to identify these issues. This ensures urban farmers can quickly conduct proper maintenance for these specific issues quicker and more easily. By doing so, conditions in the urban farm facility can be returned to optimal more quickly and ensure faster growth of crops, increasing rate of local food production.
Use of Angle Unit
By using the angle unit to set temperature threshold, urban farmers can easily set the temperature threshold according to the optimal growing temperature of the plant currently being grown. The knob of the angle unit allows the urban farmer to set the values of the threshold more easily due to being able to control the rate the values increase or decrease. This makes it more accessible for urban farmers to set the temperature thresholds.
Use of RGB Unit with moisture sensor
The RGB unit is paired with the moisture sensor to allow urban farmers to identify the exact plot of soil that does not contain enough water for the plant to grow optimally, ensuring farmers know the exact plots of soil to water when low moisture warning is triggered. This makes it even easier for urban farmers to water the dry soil, and return the moisture conditions of the soil back to optimal for the crops, further increasing growth rate of crops, increasing local food production.
Faster Beeping With More Warnings
By making the beeping faster when more warnings are detected, it alerts the farmers that many conditions in the urban farm are suboptimal for the growth of the plants or the health of the fish. This urges urban farmers to quickly conduct maintenance to return these conditions back to optimal to ensure optimal conditions can be returned more quickly from potentially detrimental conditions.
Logging Urban Farmer Entry
By logging the entry of urban farmers, when urban farmers that are not currently in the urban farm facility notice suboptimal conditions in the urban farms from their phones, they can immediately identify the most available personnel who is currently in the urban farm facility and arrange for the person to resolve the issues that arose and return conditions back to optimal as soon as possible. By doing so, conditions in the urban farm facility can be returned to optimal more quickly and ensure faster growth of crops. increasing rate of food production.
YouTube LinkNote:
- speaker volume was reduced in video to allow voices to be heard better
- label for time that has passed was only added to show that m5stack will send every 2 min. It will not be a part of the final code
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va1F7KfQ9a4
FlowchartsPrimary m5stack
https://me-qr.com/data/image-pack/47526330
Secondary m5stack (RFID)
https://me-qr.com/data/image-pack/47507460
Design Implementationhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFmJAwc4s5I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57HBTpEn7KQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPRySy3Qtvs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu_LPhLJLbc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOFfx2jOlx0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntw9ifIy1FE
https://www.sfa.gov.sg/food-for-thought/article/detail/singapore-food-security-despite-the-odds
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2021.740780/full
https://www.yourindoorherbs.com/what-can-cannot-grow-in-hydroponics/
Empathy Map and POV statements
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xLXSsEZn2IsIZw7AEb3rdAh7WYnUjo1Bat4KuBIKsm8/edit?usp=sharing
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