IoT-Enabled Multilevel Solar Dryer for Agriculture

• Main Authors: Lugnasin, Joseph Vincent B., Peña, Robert Alfie S, Dumlao, Samuel Matthew G., Macabebe, Erees Queen B.
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2023
• Subjects: IoT; monitoring system; Solar dryer; Computer Engineering; Data Storage Systems; Digital Communications and Networking; Electrical and Computer Engineering; Engineering; Physical Sciences and Mathematics
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/ecce-faculty-pubs/158; https://doi.org/10.1109/IoTaIS60147.2023.10346050
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

In the Philippines, produce such as corn, rice, and fish are usually dried through the traditional sun-drying method due to the lack of affordable alternatives that ensure better drying conditions. As such, an off-grid Internet-of-Things (IoT) multilevel solar dryer for fish was designed and developed in this study. Anchovies (dilis), being one of the common fish dried in the Philippines, were dried using the solar dryer. In parallel, the traditional sun-drying method was also conducted to compare the drying time with the solar dryer method. The monitoring system mainly collected the data that helped verify the effectiveness of the solar dryer in drying produce. The recorded data showed that the designed solar dryer was effective in trapping the heat inside since the experiment showed that the mean temperature inside the solar dryer for the top, middle, and bottom racks were 38.96 °C, 36.47 °C and 36.86 °C, respectively, while the mean ambient temperature was 30.43 °C. Moreover, the experiment showed that the solar dryer model could dry the dilis four hours faster than the traditional sun-drying method. The data collected through the monitoring system showed that the solar dryer was effective in drying dilis.