Claims:1) An automatic plant management system, comprising:

i) plurality of sensors deployed near plant(s) for gathering data regarding a set of parameters including intensity of moisture, temperature and solar radiations within a field, wherein a control unit is connected with said sensors via a communication module that fetches said data, stores the data in a cloud server, and processes said data to evaluate a mood state of plants present within said field;
ii) a first computing device operated by a plant owner and configured with a camera module for capturing images of said plant(s), wherein a processor installed in said device is configured with Augmented Reality (AR) to create an animation of said plant that indicates mood state of said plant(s), wherein said device also displays a set of actions that are to be taken for altering the mood state of said plant;
iii) an alarm generating module connected to said device and wirelessly operated by said control unit, wherein said control unit upon detecting no response to said action by processing of said parameters, generates a set of consecutive alerts; and
iv) a second computing device operated by a plant seller, wherein said control unit on evaluating dead state of said plant, updates the state on said server and allows said seller to rate plant handling capability of said owner, wherein said capability along with previously owned plant type and age of said owner are used as a reference by other sellers while selling plants.

2) The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein upon recognizing fulfillment of said actions, said controller creates a new set of actions on said first computing device.

3) The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said rating is preferably done in between 1 to 5.

4) The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said alarm generating unit increases the intensity of said alerts in case no response is noticed for a defined amount of time.

5) The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said mood states includes but not limited to happy mood state, sad mood state, dead state.

6) The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said sensors are selected from but not limited to moisture sensor, temperature sensor and light dependent resistor (LDR).

7) The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said actions are evaluated by processing and correlating data including but not limited to type and condition of plant.

8) The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said control unit is configured with machine learning protocols.
, Description:FIELD OF THE INVENTION

[0001] The present invention relates to an automatic plant management system that provides a platform not only for monitoring growth of plants but also for selling out plants to the customers based on their plant handling and caring capability.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0002] Plant cultivation is important for a country's food supply chain. Plant growth in a field is influenced by a variety of influences, including the soil characteristics, environmental conditions, and water resource management. Farmers used to cultivate the lands manually, using only the most rudimentary tools. Maintaining the farm's water level, controlling insect levels and plant development, among other things, necessitated a large amount of manpower. Farmers are unable to monitor the plants in order to keep performing the necessary things for the plant growth in the farm. The farmers are not capable of monitoring each of the plant which is planted in their field as it takes extra manual efforts of the farmer.

[0003] Hindrance in the monitoring of the plants at the required time due to manual plant control, results in a lack of yield and a loss to the farmers. There are various sensors available, used for measuring the moisture and soil quality of the farm. However, these sensor are not used regularly in order to monitor the quality of the soil as means of monitoring the growth and the quality of the plant. The poor -quality plants consumes land and energy in the area, resulting in low site productivity. The quality of the plant is an important factor for a plant seller. The seller is not capable of detecting whether the customer will be able to handle the plant with proper care and maintenance or not due to which sometimes the seller sells a plant which requires regular monitoring, but the user not having the required amount of time, is not able to provide proper care to the plants.
[0004] JP2014236691A discloses about a crop growth system in which optimum growth management of a crop can be performed by conducting temperature management and fertilizer control by grasping growth condition of the crop and using an algorithm that corresponds to the growth condition. The crop growth system comprises chambers for retaining crops, a nutrient liquid feeder for feeding nutrient liquid to the chambers, a growth condition sensor for grasping growth condition of the crops, and a main controller for controlling at least one of fertilizer concentration and nutrient liquid temperature of the nutrient liquid for each chamber according to an algorithm that corresponds to growth condition of the crops grasped by a signal of the growth condition sensor.

[0005] US20170030877A1 a multi-sensor device comprises a housing containing multiple sensor modules for capturing and transmitting sensor data for plants in a crop. A control unit within the housing is operable to control the sensor modules, and a communications interface is connected to the control unit for transmitting data from said plurality of sensor modules. The sensor modules can include a physiological sensor, a surface analysis sensor, and chemical sensor. The multi-sensor device can be used as a hand-held device or mounted to a mobile platform for use in an automated crop monitoring system.
2008219452A
[0006] Currently, there exist various devices and systems that are developed for monitoring plant growth and alerting users in case of alteration in growth rate. However, there exist no such device that provides plant shopping facility based on the handling capability of the user.

[0007] In view of the above, there exist a need of a system that not only monitors the growth of plants, but also provides a provision of buying plants based on the plant handling capability of the user.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION

[0008] The principal object of the present invention is to overcome the disadvantages of the prior art.

[0009] An object of the present invention is to provide a system that monitors the living conditions of a plant and alerts the user in case the conditions are dangerous for plant.

[0010] Another object of the present invention is to provide a system that provides visuals of the plant mood in order to empower the user to take appropriate actions during bad mood state.

[0011] Another object of the present invention is to provide a system that facilitates a user by providing assistance in buying the plants based on handling capacity of the user.

[0012] Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a system that has a sequential alarm system that raises the sound intensity of alerts upon detecting no response of the user.

[0013] The foregoing and other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become readily apparent upon further review of the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0014] The present invention relates to an automated plant management system that decodes mood state of plants and provides visuals of the plants according to their mood state. The system aids sellers/buyers in selling/buying plants based on the plant handling capability of the user.

[0015] According to an embodiment of the present invention, the automated plant management system, comprises several sensors mapped near plant(s) for collecting data related to a set of parameters including intensity of moisture, temperature and solar radiations within a field, wherein a control unit is connected with the sensors via a communication module that fetches the data, stores the data in a cloud server, and computes the data to evaluate a probable mood state of plants present within the field, a primary computing device operated by a plant owner and configured with a camera module for capturing images of the plant(s), wherein a processor installed in the device is configured with Augmented Reality (AR) to create an animation of the plant that indicates mood state of the plant(s), wherein the primary computing device also displays a set of actions that are to be taken for altering the mood state of the plant, an alarm generating module connected to the device and wirelessly operated by the control unit, wherein the control unit based on regular update of the parameters through the sensors computes fulfillment of said actions and generates a set of consecutive alerts in case the actions are not performed.

[0016] According to another embodiment of the present invention, the system further comprises a second computing device operated by a plant seller, wherein the control unit on evaluating dead state of the plant, updates the state on the server and allows the seller to rate plant handling capability of the owner, wherein the rated capability along with previously owned plant type and age of the owner are used as a reference by other sellers while selling plants.

[0017] While the invention has been described and shown with particular reference to the preferred embodiment, it will be apparent that variations might be possible that would fall within the scope of the present invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0018] These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with regard to the following description, appended claims, and accompanying drawings where:
Figure 1 illustrates a block diagram of the automated plant management system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0019] The following description includes the preferred best mode of one embodiment of the present invention. It will be clear from this description of the invention that the invention is not limited to these illustrated embodiments but that the invention also includes a variety of modifications and embodiments thereto. Therefore, the present description should be seen as illustrative and not limiting. While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative constructions, it should be understood, that there is no intention to limit the invention to the specific form disclosed, but, on the contrary, the invention is to cover all modifications, alternative constructions, and equivalents falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the claims.

[0020] In any embodiment described herein, the open-ended terms "comprising," "comprises,” and the like (which are synonymous with "including," "having” and "characterized by") may be replaced by the respective partially closed phrases "consisting essentially of," consists essentially of," and the like or the respective closed phrases "consisting of," "consists of, the like.

[0021] As used herein, the singular forms “a,” “an,” and “the” designate both the singular and the plural, unless expressly stated to designate the singular only.

[0022] The present invention relates to an automated plant management system that is used by people for proper monitoring of plant growth and regular visualization of the mood state of plant. The regular visualization of mood state helps the user in altering the mood state of the plants from bad to good by completing a set of actions suggested by the device.
[0023] Referring to Figure 1, a block diagram of the automated plant management system is illustrated, wherein the system comprises plurality of sensors that include but not limited to moisture sensor, temperature sensor and light dependent resistor (LDR) for individually monitoring one parameter related to the condition of the land and plants. The conditions include but not limited to moisture content, temperature and solar radiations falling on the field. These conditions are monitored because all of these conditions directly have an affect over the plants growing in the field. It should be obvious to a person skilled in the art that various other types of sensors can be used for monitoring more of such conditions that affect the plants. The moisture sensor is basically deployed on the land for monitoring the moisture content in the soil. The moisture sensor uses capacitance to measure the dielectric permittivity, wherein the dielectric permittivity is proportional to the amount of water content.

[0024] There are various types of temperature sensors including but not limited to thermocouple, resistance temperature detectors, semiconductor based integrated circuits, wherein all of these sensors are based on the single principal that is measuring the temperature based on the voltage variations and thus any of the above mentioned sensors is well suited for the application of the present invention. Apart from this, infrared sensor for contactless temperature measurement can also be used. The temperature sensor is also mapped on the land.

[0025] The intensity of solar radiations falling on the land are measured by the light dependent resistor. The light dependent resistor works on the phenomenon of photoconductivity, wherein photoconductivity is basically an optical phenomenon in which the materials conductivity reduces when light is absorbed by the material. The reduction in the conductivity is evaluated and thus the intensity of solar radiations falling on the land are determined.

[0026] The sensors are wirelessly connected to a control unit through a communication module i.e. (transceivers, GSM (global system for mobile) etc.). The control unit performs various functions to control the functionality of the system. The controller used herein is preferably Arduino Uno. Arduino Uno is a microcontroller board that is based on the ATmega328P (datasheet). It has 14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM (pulse width modulation) outputs), 6 analog inputs, a 16 MHz (Megahertz) ceramic resonator (CSTCE16M0V53-R0), a USB (Universal serial bus) connection, a power jack, an ICSP (In-circuit serial programming) header and a reset button. The microcontroller is basically configured with machine learning protocols for making a secured dataset from which different outputs can be taken.

[0027] The microcontroller fetches all the data gathered by the sensors in real time and transmits it to a cloud server for storage purpose. As the plant condition is directly proportional to the conditions such as moisture content, temperature and solar radiations, the microcontroller decodes the plant condition by processing the parameters acquired from the sensors. The plant condition is directly related to the plant mood state. For example, happy when watered, sad when the humidity in the soil is low, happy when optimum solar radiations are falling etc.

[0028] A primary computing device is linked with the microcontroller through wireless connection. The computing device is selected from but not limited to smartphone, laptop, personal desktop etc. The primary computing device is having a user platform basically operated by a plant owner for keeping a continuous check on the condition of the plant. The primary computing device is configured with augmented reality (AR) that works in synchronization with a camera module that is preinstalled in the device. The computing device is installed with a processor that is connected to the microcontroller by means of wireless connectivity. The camera module captures the images of the plant(s) and the processor in real time takes input from the microcontroller regarding mood state of the plant.

[0029] After receiving both the inputs, the processor of the device creates animations relating to the mood state of the plant(s). For example a little bending in the plant in case of sad mood state, fully bloomed in case of a happy mood state etc. The visualization of the bad mood state of the plant empowers the plant owner to take respective action for altering the mood state of the plant. The computing device communicates with the microcontroller and decodes the actions that are to be taken for altering the mood state of the plant. For example, the plant need to be watered, temperature needs to be regulated or the plant needs to be exposed to solar radiations. The actions to be taken are evaluated based on the type of plant and conditions.

[0030] The computing device displays the actions that are to be executed by the plant owner. The microcontroller on the other side keeps a real time check on the plant conditions and based on the plant conditions analyzes that the user has executed any actions or not. In case no action is completed by the user, the microcontroller actuates an alarm generating unit. The alarm generating unit generates consecutive alerts to notify the user to perform the aforesaid actions for changing the mood state of the plant. The intensity of the alerts increases in case no response is detected for a predefined period of time. In another case, if the actions suggested to the user have been completed by the user, new tasks/actions are assigned on the computing device.

[0031] The system is further installed with a second computing device also equipped with a user platform that is operated by a plant seller. In case, the microcontroller based on input of sensors evaluates that the plant is in dead state, the microcontroller sends an update on the server and allows the plant owner to rate/score the plant owner based on his or her plant handling capability. The plant owner scrutinizes the data stored over the server in order to rate the plant owner based on his or her handling capability. The rating is preferably given on a scoring pattern of 1 to 5, wherein 1 relates to the person who is able to handle plant that require very less monitoring, similarly 5 relates to a person who is suitable for handling any variety of plants.

[0032] The plant sellers also use their computing device at the time of selling the plants, wherein the sellers analyze the plant handling rating given by other users and previously owned plant type and the age of the buyer in order to determine an appropriate plant that can be carefully handled by the buyer.

[0033] The invention can also be added as part of academic curricular which can be more effective in the developing stages of students. Rather than spending time on gadgets playing games, children will get to learn something meaningful. As the children will do the tasks of watering the plants, children will become more curious through observation of nature, insects, and flowers. The cognitive functions will perform higher than usual.

[0034] According to an alternative embodiment of the present invention, the seller may suggest different ways of keeping the plant in good mood state.

[0035] Although the field of the invention has been described herein with limited reference to specific embodiments, this description is not meant to be construed in a limiting sense. Various modifications of the disclosed embodiments, as well as alternate embodiments of the invention, will become apparent to persons skilled in the art upon reference to the description of the invention.