Automated Plant Watering System

Plantrol

For Dr. Yanga Colleges Inc.

Elida Campus

A Capstone Project

Presented to the Faculty of the

School of Dr. Yanga Colleges Inc.

In Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree

Bachelor of Science in Information Technology

By

Antonio, Sophia

Dela Cruz, Raniel Benedict

Dimarucot, Hadji

Rama, Alyssa

Suatengco, Joseph

December 2024
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

In today's world, Gardening is one of the fulfilling occupations, however it is also a

physically demanding profession, since it involves a wide range of tasks such as watering,

mowing, weeding, trimming, and pruning. The gardener's tasks are often performed manually,

which requires a physical effort. Their workload can be considered as time-consuming since it

requires and labor-intensive job because of large plant spaces like in the institutions. These

challenges call the need for a more effective solution, the integration of automated system. To

address these issues, the development of an Automated Plant Watering System represents as an

innovative solution. The goal of this study is to reduce the workload of the school gardeners, and

save their time on other important duties. This system provides responsive approach to plants

based on the data from the sensors. As a result, gardeners can allot their time to other important

duties, while plants get watered automatedly. The transition to automated plant watering system

ensures for a more sustainable and manageable garden. As the researchers study potential

benefits of this automated solution, it becomes clear that it is essential innovation for Dr.

Yanga’s College Inc.

Recent study by (Payaal et al, 2024), the Automated Plant Watering Systems: A

Comprehensive Approach to Efficient and Sustainable Home Gardening faced different

challenges in complexity of the system and high-price sensors like temperature, humidity, and

pH. Considered to be expensive, the sensors also may not be able to use because plants has

different types and also has different temperature, humidity, and pH levels needed. In addition,
their study focused on small-scale deployments and did not adequately address scalability for

larger institutions. Furthermore, their system needs specialize knowledge for the installation and

maintenance.

This study intends to fill these gaps by creating a simple, affordable, and easy-to-use

automatic watering device that specifically design to minimize the workload of the gardeners.

The researchers only uses soil moisture sensors and rain sensor, other data is based on the

Application Programming Interface (API) specifically the openweather API such as date, time,

humidity, air pressure, sunrise, and sunset. The study will only focused on small scale

deployment at Earth Chapel, Elida Campus premises. Lastly, offering an ongoing support from

the research team can help ensure that maintenance is manageable for non-expert users like the

gardeners.

Background of the Study

Labor intensity is a significant challenge in gardening, particularly in large settings such

as institutions. By automating the watering process, gardeners in Dr. Yanga’s Colleges Inc. can

focus on their other important duties which can increase their productivity.

The Plantrol is a web application that allow user to monitor the soil moisture level based

on the soil moisture sensor and rain sensor, water volume, and customized watering schedule.

This system provides efficient and responsive plant watering, based on the real-time data from

the soil moisture sensor and rain sensor, and it reduces the manual labor from the school

gardeners while maintaining an exact soil moisture level of plants.

The features of Plantrol system includes the following:

 Water based on soil moisture levels and rain sensor

This ensures plants receive the necessary hydration for the plants. Meanwhile, the rain

sensor detects rainfall and pauses the watering process that conserves water. This

promotes sustainability by preventing unnecessary water usage during rainy conditions.

 Weather Forecast

 The system uses weather forecasts API to anticipate upcoming conditions like rain or

extreme heat. This allows users to adjust the watering schedule.

 Controls

Users can access and control the system via a web application, they can also monitor the

soil moisture levels, rain detection, and scheduled watering activities.

 Customized Water Scheduling

The system allows users to set specific watering time based on the unique needs of

different plants.

Theoretical Framework

The Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), developed by Helen Gill in 2006. Based on A 21st

Century Cyber-Physical Systems Education (2016), the core principle of Cyber-Physical

Systems CPS is to bridge the gap between engineering, real-world applications with the digital

world of computer hardware and software.

In connection to our study, automated plant watering system, the CPS framework

connects soil moisture sensors, rain sensors, and solenoid valve to web-application controls. The

physical components such as soil moisture sensors and rain sensor collect real-time data, which
is processed by computational algorithms and sends this data to the system. This allows the

system to decisions, such as scheduling watering based on environmental data.

The use of cyber-physical systems minimizes manual labor for school gardeners,

guarantees accurate and timely watering. This framework features how hardware and software

linked together in an automated plant watering system. CPS connect hardware components such

as soil moisture sensor, rain sensor and solenoid valve with web-application controls and

scheduling function to create a responsive and efficient system for plant watering.

Conceptual Paradigm

The diagram below shows the graphical representation of all the phases that make up a

process. An input-process-output diagram presents the flow of information and actions within a

system.

Figure 1.0

Figure 1.0 illustrates the Input-Process-Output (IPO) model of the Automated Plant

Watering System for Dr. Yanga Colleges Inc. The input consist of the rain sensor detects the

rainfall. The process involves analyzing the data to determine when rainfall is occurring. The

output will be the system stops watering if it detects rainfall to prevent over-watering to plants.