Moisture Control using Linear Regression for Automatic Seed Germination Box on Rockwool

In hydroponics, seed germination plays an important role as the yield and quality of the crops heavily depends on this stage. Moisture is the most crucial parameter to be maintained during germination. The medium of seed germination should be watered frequently to keep its moisture. This process is usually carried manually by the growers. Hence, an automation watering process will be beneficial. This research develops an Automatic Seed Germination Box that controls the moisture of the Rockwool medium to a certain level. A Linear Regression is developed and applied to control the motor driver based on the reading of the Moisture sensor to achieve a certain moisture level. The system consists of a Moisture sensor, an Arduino Uno microcontroller, a motor driver, and a mini water pump. The motor driver turns the mini water pump on and off to pump-up the water into the Automatic Seed Germination Box. Experiment shows that the difference between actual duration and the predicted duration in controlling the motor driver has a low error with MAPE of 8.55% and RMSE of 0.4 seconds. The system is also used to grow the seeds. The growth test shows that the developed system can grow the seeds to become the seedlings well.