Design of a Robot to Control Agricultural Soil Conditions using ESP-NOW Protocol

Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept that utilizes an internet network that is always connected among some devices. Internet of Things requires a protocol to get the information quickly and in real-time to exchange the data needed, one of them is ESP-NOW. ESP-NOW protocol is a communication protocol that is able to send data over long distances, with relatively fast transfer speeds. In addition, the technology that is developing rapidly at this time is the development of robots. A robot is a tool or technology used to facilitate human work. In this research, an IoT-based robot was developed to perform maintenance on various types of soil in accordance with optimal parameters. The robot can monitor the soil conditions and water the plant automatically. The robot monitors the temperature and humidity of the air, as well as the humidity of the agricultural soil. The desired crop condition is 70% for the minimum air humidity threshold and 60% for the minimum soil moisture threshold. The robot is also equipped with a GPS module to store the initial location of the robot. The test was conducted at 6 points, where all points were in the desired condition after 3 times of testing. The robot also uses ESP-NOW as the communication protocol to send necessary information in real-time such as agricultural soil data. The success rate of messages received by the ESP-NOW gateway at a distance of 0.5 up to 3 meters from the sender is 100%.