Arduino Based Automated Sericulture System: Improving Efficiency and Sustainability in Sericulture through Automation

Abstract

Sericulture is the science that deals with the production of silk by rearing of silkworm. Silk is called the queen of textiles due to its glittering luster, softness, elegance, durability, and tensile properties. Producing silk is a lengthy, complex process. Silkworm is one of the most important domesticated insects, which produces luxuriant silk thread in the form of cocoon by consuming mulberry leaves during larval period. The seasonal differences in the environmental components considerably affect output of silkworm crop such as cocoon weight, shell weight, and cocoon shell ratio. The variations in the environmental conditions day to day and season to season emphasize the need of management of temperature and relative humidity for sustainable cocoon production. Also the mulberry plantation, which is the only food for the silkworms, requires regular irrigation which is both time consuming and also requires the presence of farmer on land. The main objective of this project is to minimize manual intervention of the farmer, by automating the process of irrigation of mulberry plantation and also temperature monitoring and control of the Silkworm rearing unit. By using a Low cost micro-controller board (Arduino UNO).