Automated system with ESP32 for monitoring vertical hydroponic farming and air quality

Abstract

Urban population growth has increased air pollution levels and adversely affected public health, highlighting the need for sustainable solutions in densely populated cities. While urban agriculture and monitoring technologies offer alternatives for improving the climate, there is limited integration of automated systems to optimize hydroponic vertical farming. Research shows that urban agriculture and vertical hydroponic farming contribute to improving the urban climate through the integration of sensors and intelligent control models. This research proposes a low-cost automated system based on ESP32 for hydroponic crops and environmental monitoring, integrating sensors, actuators, and threshold-based control algorithms with wireless connectivity to regulate agro-environmental variables. A cyclical control system is implemented that periodically evaluates variables such as temperature, substrate moisture, pH, and turbidity with configurable thresholds, automatically activating actuators to maintain optimal growing conditions. The results show that automated irrigation control, real-time monitoring, and CO2 reduction were achieved under controlled conditions, demonstrating its usefulness for environmental management. Future work proposes integrating predictive algorithms with automatic alerts.