Design and Build an Environmental Conditioning System on a Smart Growth Box for Microgreens

Abstract

An environmental conditioning system is a system capable of conditioning the environment on the Smart Growth Box device. In this study, the design of an environmental conditioning system was carried out which aims to control the parameters of air temperature, humidity, soil moisture, and light intensity in the Smart Growth Box. In this design, the DHT22 sensor is used for the detection of air temperature and humidity, a capacitive soil moisture sensor as a moisture detector for planting media, and LDR (Light Dependent Resistor) as a light intensity detector. The readings from the sensor will be processed by the ESP32 microcontroller to control the actuator. Air temperature and humidity parameters are conditioned by exhaust fan, soil moisture is conditioned by sprayer pump and automatically turns on the grow light LED (Light Emitting Diode) when the light intensity is less than the setpoint. This system can reduce the temperature by half a degree with the average length of time of 01:14 minutes, reduce humidity by 1% RH with the average length of time of 17:57 minutes, and increase the level of soil moisture by 7.71% with once watering and can automatically turn on the grow light LED when the light intensity less than 10 lux. This system is also able to increase the growth of microgreens with the results of microgreens growing more evenly, wider leaves, taller stems, and increasing crop yields.