Compost Monitoring System for Kitchen Waste Management: Development, Deployment and Analysis

Composting can be perceived as an art and science of converting organic waste into a rich and nutritious soil amendment—compost. The existing literature talks about how and what parameters need to be monitored in the process of composting and what actions are to be taken to optimize the process. In this paper, the development, deployment and data analytics of a compost monitoring system are presented, wherein not only the parameters to be measured but also the topology, mechanical design and battery operation details, which are crucial for the deployment of the system, are considered. Having realized that the temperature plays an important role in the process of composting, a contactless method of monitoring the compost temperature, using thermal imaging, has been investigated. Results showing the screenshots of the successfully developed system, plots of the obtained data and the inferences drawn from them are presented. This work not only contributes to the composting data, which is scarce, but also brings out the advantages of using thermal images in addition to temperature sensor probes.