Advancements in technology have revolutionized various sectors, including agriculture, which serves as the backbone of many economies, particularly in Asian countries. The integration of new technologies and research has consistently aimed to enhance cultivation rates and reduce reliance on manual labor.
Two key technologies, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), have emerged as pivotal tools in automating processes, providing recommendations, and monitoring agricultural activities to optimize results. While traditional soil cultivation has been the preferred method, the increasing urbanization trend necessitates alternative approaches such as hydroponics, which replaces soil with water as the medium for crop cultivation. Having many significant advantages, hydroponics serves a crucial role in achieving efficient space utilization. To get a higher density of plants in a confined area, the hydroponic approach provides water, nutrients, and other essential elements directly to the plant's root.
To utilize the hydroponic system more effectively, the researchers' proposed method, integrating AI and IoT, helps to provide suitable crop recommendations, monitor the parameters of the plants, and also suggest the necessary changes required for gaining optimal parameters. To ensure optimal resource allocation and maximize yields, the researchers have used machine learning models and trained them to recommend suitable crops from the given parameters and also refer to the changes in parameters that are needed for better plant growth. The researchers have used the crop recommendation dataset from the Indian Chamber of Food and Agriculture to train the proposed machine-learning model. The researchers' selected machine learning algorithms to predict the best crops are Random forests, Decision trees, SVM, KNN, and XGBoost. The researchers' research combines AI and IoT with hydroponic systems to streamline crop recommendations, automate monitoring processes, and provide real-time guidance for optimized cultivation. Among them, the Random forest algorithm outperformed other algorithms with an accuracy of 97.5%..