DEVELOPMENT OF MOBILE BASED AGRICULTURE SCHEDULING … · DEVELOPMENT OF MOBILE BASED AGRICULTURE SCHEDULING SYSTEM FOR FARMERS IN REGIONAL LANGUAGE (PUNJABI) USING WEATHER CONDITIONS

DEVELOPMENT OF MOBILE BASED AGRICULTURE

SCHEDULING SYSTEM FOR FARMERS IN REGIONAL

LANGUAGE (PUNJABI) USING WEATHER

CONDITIONS

Thesis

Submitted to the Punjab Agricultural University in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

MASTER OF TECHNOLOGY in

COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING (Minor Subject: Information Technology)

By

Navjot Kaur

(L-2014-AE-213-M)

School of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology

© PUNJAB AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY

LUDHIANA-141004

2016

CERTIFICATE I

This is to certify that the thesis entitled, “DEVELOPMENT OF MOBILE BASED

AGRICULTURE SCHEDULING SYSTEM FOR FARMERS IN REGIONAL

LANGUAGE (PUNJABI) USING WEATHER CONDITIONS” submitted for the degree

of M.Tech, in the subject of Computer Science and Engineering (Minor subject:

Information Technology) of the Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, is a bonafide

research work carried out by Navjot Kaur (L-2014-AE-213-M) under my supervision and

that no part of this thesis has been submitted for any other degree.

The assistance and help received during the course of investigation have been fully

acknowledged.

__________________________

(Dr. (Mrs.) B.K. Sawhney)

Major Advisor

Associate Professor

School of Electrical Engineering

& Information Technology,

Punjab Agricultural University,

Ludhiana-141004

CERTIFICATE II

This is to certify that the thesis entitled, “DEVELOPMENT OF MOBILE BASED

AGRICULTURE SCHEDULING SYSTEM FOR FARMERS IN REGIONAL

LANGUAGE (PUNJABI) USING WEATHER CONDITIONS” submitted by Navjot

Kaur (L-2014-AE-213-M) to the Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of M.Tech, in the subject of Computer Science

and Engineering (Minor subject: Information Technology) has been approved by the

Student’s Advisory Committee along with the Head of Department after an oral examination

on the same, in collaboration with an External Examiner.

__________________________ ______________________________

(Dr. (Mrs.) B.K. Sawhney) (Dr. J.S. Ubhi )

Major Advisor External Examiner

Associate Professor

Deptt. of Electronics & Communication,

Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering

and Technology,

Sangrur

____________________________

(Dr. Jaskarn Singh Mahal)

Director

School of Electrical Engineering

& Information Technology,

Punjab Agricultural University,

Ludhiana-141004

___________________________

(Dr. (Mrs.) Neelam Grewal)

Dean, Postgraduate Studies

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Fore mostly, I bow my head with reverence to ‘Almighty Lord’ who showed the

blessings on me during the course of this research and brought it to a logical end.

I express my profound gratitude, indebtedness and appreciation to my Major Advisor

Dr. (Mrs.) B.K. Sawhney, Associate Professor, School of Electrical Engineering & Information

Technology, PAU, Ludhiana, for her valuable guidance, constant encouragement and

unending help during the tenture of this study.

I am thankful to all the members of my Advisory Committee Dr. O.P. Gupta,

Associate Professor, Dr. Derminder Singh, Associate Professor and Er. Salam Din, Associate

Professor of School of Electrical Engineering & Information Technology for their valuable

suggestions and expert guidance on various issues related to this research work.

I wish to express my deepest sense of gratitude to my parents Mr. Bikkar Singh and

Mrs. Simarjit Kaur, my husband Mr. Gulwinderpal Singh and my brother Mr. Harinderjot

Singh for their unconditional love, support and sacrifices, which can never be forgotten and

whose ever willing help has a great role in my life.

A debt of gratitude is also owned for the unending help and encouragement received

from my friends Rajvir, Mumraj, Karanveer, Shiveta and Swarn that will remain indelible in

my memory.

I take this opportunity to extend my sincere thanks to all the teaching and the non-

teaching staff of School of Electrical Engineering & Information Technology for their kind

cooperation, generous help as and when needed.

In the end, I am thankful to all those who may not have been mentioned but are not

forgotten.

_____________ (Navjot Kaur)

Title of the Thesis : Development of mobile based agriculture

scheduling system for farmers in regional

language (Punjabi) using weather conditions

Name of the Student : Navjot Kaur

and Admission No. L-2014-AE-213-M

Major Subject : Computer Science and Engineering

Minor Subject : Information Technology

Name and Designation : Dr. (Mrs.) B.K. Sawhney

of Major Advisor Associate Professor

School of Electrical Engineering &

Information Technology

Degree to be awarded : M.Tech (Computer Science & Engineering)

Year of award of Degree : 2016

Total pages in Thesis : 66 + Appendix + Vita

Name of University : Punjab Agricultural University,

Ludhiana-141 004, Punjab, India

ABSTRACT

In Indian agriculture, farming activities like sowing, harvesting and irrigation plays very

important role in productivity. These activities must be performed in suitable manner and

most importantly at appropriate time in order to get good yield. But sadly most of the farmers

are unaware about the impact of these activities on yield of their crop. So application is

developed to educate farmers about it. The developed software application is basically for

dissemination of information to farmers about the proper way of performing various farming

activities in regional language Punjabi, of two main crops of Punjab- wheat and paddy. This

application will assists farmers in performing these activities in proper manner and help them

in improving their productivity of crops. Based on date of sowing, farmers will get

notifications about farming activities. Additional advice will be provided along with the

notification on the basis of weather conditions. This system is an android based application

developed in regional language Punjabi for overcoming lingual barrier of farmers. The

application is developed using Android Studio which is the official Integrated Development

Environment (IDE) for developing an Android application.

Keywords: Android, Scheduling, Farming Activities, Wheat, Paddy, Punjabi.

_____________________________ _______________________

Signature of the Major Advisor Signature of the Student

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ividAwrQI dw nwm Aqy dwKlw nM. : nvjoq kOr (AYl-2014-ey.eI.-213-AYm)

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pRmu`K slwhkwr dw nwm Aqy Ahudw : fw. bI.ky. swhnI sihXogI pRoPYsr skUl AwP ielYktRIkl ieMjnIAirMg AYNf ieMnPrmySn tYknolojI

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER TOPIC PAGE NO.

I INTRODUCTION 1 – 4

II REVIEW OF LITERATURE 5 – 13

III MATERIAL AND METHODS 14 – 37

IV RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 38 – 61

V SUMMARY 62 – 64

REFERENCES 65 – 66

APPENDIX i – xliv

VITA

LIST OF TABLES

Table No. Title Page No.

3.1 Structure of farmer table 21

3.2 Structure of admin table 21

3.3 Structure of wheatOct table 21

3.4 Structure of wheatseed table 22

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure No. Title Page No.

1.1 Mobile Penetration in Urban and Rural Segment 1

3.1 Data Flow Diagram for users 20

3.2 Data Flow Diagram for admin 20

3.3 String.xml file 22

3.4 Android Cycle 26

3.5 Architecture of Android 30

3.6 Model View Controller 32

3.7 Work Flow of App Development 34

3.8 JSON Structure 36

3.9 JSON Call 36

4.1 Login Activity 39

4.2 Registration Activity 40

4.3 Registration Activity showing validation violated message 41

4.4 Home Activity 41

4.5 Weather Fragment 42

4.6 Wheat Fragment 43

4.7 Notification Fragment of Wheat Crop 43

4.8 Notification of Wheat Crop 44

4.9 Confirmation Message 44

4.10 Confirmation message regarding changing of sowing date 45

4.11 After Notification Activity of Wheat 45

4.12 Schedule Wheat Activity 46

4.13 Schedule of October 46

4.14 Schedule of November 46

4.15 Schedule of March 46

4.16 Wheat Seed Activity 47

4.17 Wheat Seed Type1 Activity 48


Figure No. Title Page No.


4.20 Paddy Fragment 50

4.21 Notification Fragment of Paddy 50

4.22 Notification in notification panel of Paddy Crop 51

4.23 Confirmation Message of Paddy Crop 51

4.24 Confirmation message about changing of sowing date of Paddy 52

4.25 After Notification Activity of Paddy 52

4.26 Schedule Paddy Activity 53

4.27 Schedule of May 53

4.28 Schedule of June 53

4.29 Schedule of September 53

4.30 Paddy Seed Activity 54

4.31 Paddy Seed Type1 Activity 55



4.34 Login Activity of Admin 57

4.35 Drawer of Home Activity 57

4.36 Activity for adding new seeds of Wheat 58

4.37 Activity for adding new information of schedule of October 58

4.38 Options for altering previous Information 59

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The society is going through technological era. The involvement of technology is

there in each and every phase of the life. Whereas these days, the most common way of

transmitting voice, data and services in the world is the mobile communication technology.

Strategic reforms in the telecommunications sector since 1990s, facilitates strong

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure in India. In 2012, India and

China accounted for nearly 40 per cent of the total new mobile connections across the world.

Evidently, the Indian market plays a key role in the ever-expanding mobile network globally.

The Indian mobile subscriber base stood at 970 million in March 2015 and is expected to

cross one billion by 2016. The Indian mobile subscriber base contributes to around 15 percent

of the world mobile subscriptions of 6.5 billion (Cellular Operators Association of India

(COAI), 2015).

Fig 1.1 Mobile Penetration in Urban and Rural Segment

Horizontal line ( x-axis) depicts year and vertical line (y-axis) depicts percentage

(Source: COAI Annual Reports 2015)

Rural mobile subscriber base has been increasing steadily over last seven years. It

was 27 percent in the 2008 and by 2015 the rural subscriber base has reached till 42 percent

of the total subscriber base. It is estimated by the Mobile industry that the mobile growth will

now happen from rural segment. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) report states

that 93 percent of the internet users are using mobile devices to access the internet

application. It means that mobile devices are fast replacing personal computers to access

content available on internet. This clearly indicates that the Internet revolution via mobile

telephony is taking place from the rural areas (COAI, 2015). So mobile phones can be used to

disseminate information even in rural areas.

2

Mobile phones are used very commonly by everyone. The development of mobile

applications (Mobile app) has increased the usability of mobiles beyond voice and text

communications. Mobile app is a computer program designed to run on mobile devices such

as smartphones and tablet computers. Due to rapid growth in the use of smartphones and

falling internet access costs, the development of mobile apps has increased dramatically.

Earlier mobile apps were developed mainly for entertainment and communication purposes

only. But now trend has been changed and mobile apps are focused on other sectors as well

like finance, agriculture and even daily routine activities. Mobile app for agricultural and rural

development (m-ARD apps) is one of the emerging fields that focus on the enhancement of

agricultural and rural development. As mobiles are part of day-to-day life of everyone,

including farmers, so they can be utilized for providing accurate and timely information to

farmers, reminding them about farming activities and helping them in improving their

productivity.

There are many advantages of mobile apps but the most important one is that they are

quite easy to use as compared to websites. In order to use websites one must know how to

operate a computer which is a quite cumbersome task for a common man like farmer. On the

other hand mobile apps are very user friendly; one can easily operate it and get benefitted

from it.

1.1 Need of a Scheduling Mobile app for Punjabi Farmers

Agriculture is one of the main livelihoods in India especially in Punjab. Indian Punjab is

called the ―India’s bread-basket‖. It produces wheat, paddy, cotton and other important crops.

So productivity of crops of Punjab has great impact on the Indian economy. Agriculture

involves number of activities like sowing, irrigation, fertilization, harvesting etc. All these

activities must be performed at appropriate time and also in suitable manner for good

productivity and proper utilization of resources. Moreover, weather conditions also affect the

productivity of crops. But most of the farmers do not have proper or up to date information.

As a result farmers do not perform these farming activities on time or in proper manner. They

just follow hit or trail method or old traditional methods. This leads to exploitation and

wastage of natural resources, also productivity of their crops get affected and so is economy

of country.

Agricultural experts provide information to farmers about proper timing and proper

manner of doing various farming activities by organizing various camps in villages. Even

Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) monthly magazine has published columns related to

farming activities of various crops to remind farmers about various activities that are to be

performed in upcoming month.

3

Weather conditions play very important role in Indian agriculture. Productivity will

be increased if all these activities are done by considering weather conditions as well. Like if

there is time to irrigate fields but according to weather forecasting there is possibility of rain

in coming one-two days so irrigation can be postponed accordingly. This will save resources

like water, electricity and also save the crop from waterlogging. These day as life of each and

every person is very busy so it is possible that one may forget timing of irrigation or putting

manure to his fields due to his hectic life schedule and it will have adverse impact on

productivity of crop. So developed mobile based agriculture scheduling system, that by taking

in account weather conditions, remind the farmers about various farming activities and

contribute in increasing the productivity and their economic conditions as well. It also

provides basic information such as type of seeds available or recommended by PAU, which

fertilizer to be used and in what quantity etc. about various crops. This helps in reducing the

wastage of resources and money as well.

Now-a-days so many information systems are available but still farmers do not get

advantage from them due to language problem. As most of the mobile apps developed for

agricultural assistance has English language user interface. So language barrier is there. As

most of the agriculturists either can’t communicate in English or they reluctant to do so.

Farmers will be more interested in using any mobile app if it will be in their regional

language. That’s why the proposed mobile based scheduling system is developed in regional

language Punjabi focusing mainly on Punjabi farmers.

The proposed system termed as ―Development of mobile based agriculture scheduling

system for farmers in regional language (Punjabi) using weather conditions‖ is android based

mobile app. It is a scheduling app designed for two crops wheat and paddy in which

registered farmer can enter date of sowing of his crop and app will give notifications to him

about various farming activities from date of sowing till harvesting. It is developed in regional

language Punjabi so that more and more farmers are able to utilize it in their agricultural

activities and get benefitted from it. It enables farmer to perform all these activities timely and

also in proper manner. This mobile app also displays weather in regional language Punjabi to

improve the understandability of weather by farmers. The weather conditions are also taken

into consideration while notifying farmers about various farming activities so that natural

resources like rainfall is utilized properly and also wastage of other resources is reduced. The

user interface of mobile app is very easy to use and focuses mainly on assisting farmers in

agricultural activities. This mobile app also provides information about the type of seeds

recommended by PAU. So that farmers can get latest up to date information. The essential

features of the mobile app can be summarized as follows:

Scheduling system to notify registered users about important farming activities.

Weather is displayed in regional Language Punjabi.

4

User interface of app is in Regional language Punjabi.

Information about type of seeds of wheat and paddy recommended by PAU

Displays monthly schedule of wheat and paddy.

1.2 Objectives

The objectives of the proposed system are as follows:

i. To study the basic information required for farmers such as varieties of seeds,

types of fertilizers and information about various farming activities.

ii. To develop mobile based agriculture scheduling system for farmers in regional

language (Punjabi) using weather conditions like temperature, humidity.

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Silva and Ratnadiwakara (2005) studied about using ICT to reduce transaction costs

in agriculture through better communication in Sri Lanka. They found that there were notable

costs attached to information search and hence transaction costs related with all six stages of

the agricultural value chain ongoing with the decision to grow and ended with sale of produce

at the wholesale market. In the decision stage and selling stages, the relative proportion of

information search costs was found to be highest among the farmer group in the case study of

smallholder vegetable farmers in rural Sri Lanka. The study also found that if farmers had

used the phone at various points in the agricultural value chain their information search costs

could have been decreased considerably. Consequently it was reasonable to suggest an

cohesive system using a mobile phone platform that addressed the total information needed

from the decision making stage to selling stages of agricultural produce to assist farmers

significantly reduce information search costs.

Singh (2008) conducted study about the diffusion of mobile phones in India. He

concluded that mobile phones were becoming the foremost means of retrieving

communication. At the end of 2005–2006, there were 90 million mobile subscribers in India

in comparison to 50 million subscribers for landlines. The increase in mobile phones had been

phenomenal in comparison with landlines since the introduction of mobiles in the country.

The main aim of his study was to estimate future trends and analyze the pattern and rate of

adoption of mobile phones in India. He used S-shaped growth curve models for the same. It

was found that mobile-density (number of mobile phones per 100 inhabitants) in India would

increase from 8.1 in 2005–2006 to 36.5 in 2010–2011 and 71 in 2015–2016. Consequently,

the mobile subscriber base was projected to increase from 90 million in 2005–2006 to 433

million in 2010–2011 and nearly 900 million in 2015–2016. The predictable rapid growth in

the mobile subscriber base would have significant implications for future plans of mobile

operators, infrastructure providers, handset suppliers and vendors.

Mittal and Tripathi (2009) concluded on role of mobile phone technology in

improving small farm productivity. Mobile phones have the potential to provide solution to

the current information asymmetry in numerous lagging sectors like agriculture. India’s

agricultural sector suffered from low growth rates and low productivity. Problems in access to

information were weak points at each stage of the agri-supply chain. For small farmer-based

economy like India, access to information could perhaps enable improved incomes and

productivity to the farmers. Through group discussions and in-depth interviews with farmers,

they tried to find answers to the use and impact of mobile phones and mobile-enabled services

on agricultural productivity. The answers to these questions were of relevance to develop

6

better policy environment conducive for small and medium farmers and have repercussions

for mobile phone operators, information service providers, and policymakers. The study had

revealed that although, mobile phones could act as catalyst to improving farm productivity

and rural incomes, the superiority of information, appropriateness of information and

trustworthiness of information were the three significant features that had to be delivered to

the farmers to meet their needs and expectations. There exist critical binding constraints that

restricted the ability of the farming community to realize full-potential gains and it was more

so for small than large farmers.

Sahota (2009) accompanied a study on usage of mobile phones for accessing

agricultural information under the Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative Limited (IFFCO)-

Airtel Kisan Card initiative and found that proactive usage of the service by the farmers was

very little. Nobody had made a voice call or sent as SMS to the service providers to seek extra

agricultural information. It was observed that most of the farmers who had bought the mobile

phone as a part of the initiative were utilizing it for social interacting. Even the initiative also

had facility for sending video clips or still photographs to the experts for seeking advice, it

was found that the farmers were not able to use this feature due to their inadequate

technological skills. Further, farmers (especially small landholders) sensed that the advice

was not feasible, as the inputs suggested by the experts were either not available in the local

market or were too expensive.

Alibaygi et al (2010) surveyed the effectiveness of rural ICT centers. They concluded

that Rural ICT centers played a significant role in rural development through improving e-

governance in rural areas. The main purpose of this survey research was to examine the

efficiency of rural ICT Centers for developing e-governance in the rural societies of the

Kermanshah Township, situated in the west of Iran. The data were collected in two phases.

The firstly Delphi technique was used, carried out by the participation of ICT experts to

determine the effectiveness indicators. The second phase engaged a structured interview using

a questionnaire. The majority of people did not use internet services despite its accessibility in

the ICT Centers. The ICT Centers also had little effectiveness in improving rural households’

income, employment rate, dispersion of agricultural material among farmers, and e-

commerce. They were to some extent effective in reducing the relocation of rural people to

urban areas, their day-to-day trips to near cities, and postal necessities as well as improving e-

governance in rural areas.

Masuki et al (2010) studied the role of mobile phones in improving communication

and information delivery for agricultural development in South Western Uganda. They

highlighted the critical role mobile phones could play in greater efficiency for farmers in rural

setting. One of the key findings was that mobile phones were gradually accessible to lower-

income groups in rural areas. As of from the discussions and observations made, it was found

7

that farmers were more enthusiastic about using the phone to access information on

agriculture, natural resources management. This called for various characters along the

product value chain to look into the chances that mobile phones could best be utilized to lift

agricultural development that accounted for more than 30 percent of the county’s Gross

Domestic Product (GDP) given the rapid growth of the mobile in the country. Chances arisen

from the proliferation of mobile phones experienced in most developing countries like

Uganda needed to be explored especially in the absence of other ICT infrastructure, like fixed

phones and internet.

Maumbe et al (2010) reported the evolution of information and communication

technology (ICT) applications in agriculture and rural development based on proportional

experiences of South Africa and Kenya. The framework postulates that complete deployment

of ICT in agriculture and rural development would be a result of several phases of change that

started with e-government policy plan, development and employment. They argued that ICT

used in agriculture and rural development was a dominant instrument for improving

agricultural and rural development and standards of living throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.

There were so many impairments included the lack of awareness, low literacy, infrastructure

deficiencies, language and cultural hurdles in ICT usage, the low e-inclusivity and the need to

supply for the special needs of some users. They reviewed successful applications of ICT in

agriculture and urged greater use of ICT-based interventions in agriculture as a vehicle for

encouraging rural development in Africa.

Mittal et al (2010) studied the socio-economic impact of mobile phones on Indian

agriculture. They stated that as a telephonic device, the mobile empowers access to

information sources that may not otherwise be accessible. As an information platform to

receive messages, menu or voice message information, mobiles provides the skill to get

linked to new knowledge and information sources not formerly available. Even at their initial

stage, mobile phones were being used in Indian agriculture and started to deliver agricultural

productivity improvements, an influence that was enhanced by the new mobile-enabled

information services. The most common benefit of mobile telephony found in the research

was derived from the use of mobile phones as a basic communications device as for many of

the farmers interviewed, it was the only appropriate phone access they had. The barriers

applied more to small than to large farmers; large farmers were more able to leverage the

profits of the communication and information they could access. The limitations included

failings in physical infrastructure that affected access to markets, storage and irrigation. Issues

regarding the accessibility of critical goods and services including seeds, fertilizers, medicines

and credit to small farmers also existed. Increased public and private investment and policy

changes might also be needed to encourage better access to superior quality inputs and credit

for small farmers. Increased extension services and capacity-building efforts could balance

8

information dissemination via mobile phones and associated services to accelerate the

adoption of new practices. Social networks might play a dynamic role in building the trust

and confidence required to influence the acceptance of new mentalities an actions by small

farmers. Furthermore, basic information would need to be complemented by a range of other

activities such as demonstrations and broader communication efforts. In the case of

fishermen, there were, in addition to economic benefits, safety benefits and enhanced quality

of life from decreased isolation and vulnerability.

Kameswari (2011) discussed the agricultural information seeking behavior of farmers

in the state of Uttarakhand, India. It tried to clarify the reasons behind use of certain media –

including ICTs - by the farmers over other existing sources. It was observed that, though

farmers had access to a wide range of media/ sources, they mostly trusted on middlemen, and

native and certified sources for agricultural information. Among new ICTs, mobile phones

were broadly accessible in the study area but were frequently being used for post-sale inquiry

rather than paddy negotiation, accessing markets or paddy information or increasing

production efficiency. In the rural Indian context, the availability of ICTs does alter the

reciprocal connection between the seller (farmer) and the buyer (middlemen). In the absence

of formal and effective institutions, the middleman was also the supplier of seeds, fertilizers,

pesticides and credit to the farmers and this skewed relation limited the advantage that could

be derived from use of ICTs. While the study indicated that the possible advantage from use

of ICTs in rural areas were offset by an absence of other input agencies, interventions in other

parts of the country indicated that the entire agricultural supply chain could be made more

effective by use of ICTs. Hence, rather than negating the likely benefits that could be derived

from the use of ICTs in agriculture sector, this study pointed to issues that needed to be

addressed simultaneously.

Qiang et al (2011) stated the role of mobile applications in agriculture and rural

development. They reported that m-ARD apps offered innovative, dynamic, interdisciplinary

services. Their main findings were:

Enabling platforms were likely the most significant factor for m-ARD apps to move

from the pilot stage to the scalability and sustainability stages—beyond donor and

government funding. Such platforms were built on the links between handsets,

software applications, and payment tools that supported interactions among

stakeholders in the m-app ecosystem. Platforms could provide access to more users,

offer effective technical standards, and incorporate payment mechanisms.

Numerous other mechanisms, such as incubators and central hubs, could support the

development of ecosystems for m-ARD apps.

9

Some m-ARD apps were achieving scalability, replicability, and sustainability.

Despite numerous challenges, a number of m-ARD apps were doing well, with a

good equilibrium of cost, marketing, and pricing strategies.

Commercial m-ARD apps needed to improve or enlarge their services in response to

user needs and ensure that they provided enough value to produce sustainable

demand and revenues—increased users’ willingness to pay and overcoming ability to

pay issues even at low economies of scale.

Ramaraju et al (2011) studied about ICT in agriculture. ICT in agriculture, an emerging

field concentrated on the improvement of agriculture in India. It called for application of

advanced ways to use ICT in the field of agriculture. The basic problems in adopting ICT by

farmers were ICT illiteracy, availability of relevant and localized contents in their respective

languages, reasonable and easy availability and other issues such as awareness and

willingness for adoption of new technologies etc. The study was carried out to develop an

understanding of the agricultural related ICT needs and problems tackled in using ICT by the

farmer’s in numerous agro and socio-economic situations; with emphasis on the small and

marginal farmers. A primary survey was piloted using structured Schedules / Questionnaires,

Focus Group Debates and Participatory Rural Evaluation. Overall 26 ICT initiatives in

agriculture was studied, covering 1381 agrarians in 57 designated sample villages in 12 states

of India to elicit the need felt by farmers, prioritize their perceptions and fetch out the issues

involved in the development of ideal ICT applications for agriculture. The research

confirmed that the most common information gadget possessed and accessed by the farmers is

the Mobile Phone (82percent) followed by Television (73percent) and the Newspaper

(67percent). Most of the Indian farmers had mobile phones and they were also attracted to use

their mobiles for retrieving information. Farmers found it more suitable with voice based

advices/information, as they opined that they could discuss their queries while

communicating with experts in their own language.

Yadav et al (2011) assessed the impact of ICT – enabled Knowledge Sharing Agri-

portals in Uttarakhand. They concluded that it was argued that Information and

Communication Technologies (ICT) could lead to development in developing countries.

Because of this, developing countries have been rushing to implement ambitious ICT projects

in rural areas through the direct-indirect regulation of organizations such as, the World Bank,

United Nations (UN) and other donor/local agencies. The main focus of the involvements had

been the employment of these ICT projects, rather than understanding their impacts at the

recipient level. This deficiency of understanding had led to many failures of ICT projects

reported in the literature. The analytical research design was used to conduct the

investigation. Two Agri portals viz. Agropedia and aAQUA were designated by survey

method. Interview Schedule, Impact assessment index and opinionnaire were established to

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gather data from the farmers. Findings of the study discovered that majority of farmers were

medium aged, educated up to Intermediate, with primary occupation as farming, general

caste, medium family income, with majority of male, had nuclear family and medium family

size, obsessed medium level of communication media, high level of agricultural apparatus,

average household possession, medium level of social participation, and contact fellow

farmers for agricultural information. Television was the most widely accessed media,

majority had low farming experience, medium animal possession, produce 2-3 crops a year,

all of them were aware of the Agri-portals’, majority of them visited the selected Agri-portals

for market information on periodic basis, shared the information provided through both the

Agri-portals with neighbors, satisfied with Agri-portals’ references, gained medium

knowledge and utilized to medium extent. Maximum number of farmers preached that

uploaded data of Agropedia and aAQUA was moderately relevant, with high technical words,

moderately valuable content, with suitable readability and had the opinion that internet was

the best way to learn new things. Maximum farmers reported slightly positive changes in

income, quality of produce, crop diversification due to Agropedia and aAQUA. The utmost

important limitation identified by the farmers was least number of trainings.

Gichamba and Lukandu (2012) suggested a model for designing m-agriculture

applications for dairy farming. They concluded that Mobile technology could be applied in

agriculture to improve the various processes that were involved between the production of

produce in the farming. The presented M-Agriculture model offered a workable solution

towards the design and implementation of mobile applications in dairy farming. From the

research, it was marked that most of the areas with inadequacies could be solved using mobile

technology. The designed model could be used by software developers to create mobile

applications that were focused on dairy farming and to implement the numerous business

processes involved in that agrarian sector. The model could also be adopted by policy

organizations and government and researchers as well. Further work might be done to test the

model in other areas of agriculture, e.g. crop farming.

Saha et al (2012) developed m-Sahayak- the innovative android based application for

real-time assistance in Indian agriculture and health sectors. Mobile or smart phones (Android

based) were becoming a vital device for all people irrespective of the age and literacy. In

India, mobile technology had released a paradigm shift in the communication medium to

reach out to the common people. Extension of mobile-phone based any-time, any-where

scientific expert advice to the farmers was a possibility in India, i.e., information was

available earlier for electronic processing, and communication had merged with Information

Technology to create ICT impacts as a whole. ICT enabled environment was becoming a day-

to-day reality everywhere in India. Tele-health allowed health care professionals to diagnose

and treat patients in remote locations using ICT. The application took care of certain problems

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in agriculture and health care by simultaneously capturing data and directing them to a

specified server. Agricultural Scientists or doctors can view or listen to this information and

deliver proper solutions, accordingly. The development was tested satisfactorily.

Lomotey et al (2013) developed MobiCrop: supporting crop farmers with a cloud-

enabled mobile application. Mobile technology was increasingly being adopted in the

agricultural space as a measure to assist farmers in decision. The MobiCrop project was

started by the scholars from the College of Agriculture at the University of Saskatchewan,

Canada. The aim of the project was to enable farmers to have easy access to up to date

information on pesticides and further make decisions on which pesticides to apply, how to

and when to apply them, and so on. Due to its complexity, MobiCrop was designed as a

mobile distributed system that followed a three-layered deployment. Since the data that was

being pushed to the mobile resided on the database server, caching procedure on the mobile

had been proposed to support offline convenience of pesticide information.

Prasad et al (2013) developed AgroMobile: a cloud-based framework for

agriculturists on mobile platform. They concluded that use of mobile devices was very

common, including the agrarians. Introduction of ICT had seen a keen role in daily life of

farmers. Previously, farmers used to depend on clouds for rains were looking into the Cloud

Computing (CC) for their resolutions towards tilling of better crops in modern agricultural

world. The conventional methods used by the farmers, particularly in India, were very slow

and untrustworthy. The crops were spoiled in field itself due to disease attacks and lack of

information resources. This loss grew more than 40 percent in total annually. They proposed

various ways in which a farmer could utilize Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) on their

handsets using application called AgroMobile, to assist them for relatively better cultivation

and marketing.

Razaque et al (2013) concluded on the use of mobile phone among farmers for

agriculture development. Mobile phone usage in world was playing a dynamic role for the

enhancement of farmers business towards agriculture. Communication through mobile phones

was considered very significant in enhancing farmers’ access to better understand agricultural

market situation. Farming communities cherished mobile phone as easy, fast and convenient

way to communicate and get prompt answers of respective problems. The mobile phone had

created an opportunity for the farmers particularly to get the information about marketing and

weather. The use of mobile phone also kept them aware for weather forecast for agriculture

input application which might be exaggerated by unfore seen dis-asters as communicated by

metrological department. This device had given new direction and approach to farmers to

communicate directly and share about current advances with each other. The studies disclosed

that mobile phones have saved energy, time of farmers and ultimately improved their income.

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Mobile phones have provided a chance to the farmers to communicate directly with market

brokers and customers for selling their product at good paddy.

Bhalchandra et al (2014) studied role of information technology in agriculture

marketing and it's scope in Pune district. Information technology (IT), one of the modern

human made technologies is prompting life, training, research and management pattern etc.

Information Technology is utilized to develop life, agricultural research, education and

extension to improve quality. The study took place in Pune District, Maharashtra to study

impact of IT on farmers and to find out holes in the existing information system. It also

focused on how this market information could be used for planning, production and holding

stocks. The sample size was 50 including rural and semi urban population. The Major

findings were, the farmers in the age group of 30–50 are using IT for their crop production.

Agricultural marketing was male dominated field. Graduates and post graduates were using

IT effectively. IT could be the best mean not only to develop agricultural extension but also to

expand agriculture research in Pune India. The paper focused on the scope of IT in Pune

District only.

Ghogare and Monga (2015) discussed the introduction and figuration of E-agriculture

applications. E-Agriculture is an emerging field focusing on the upgrading of rural and

agricultural development through advanced information and communication processes. Some

issues with agriculture and rural development were discussed. The main aim of their research

was to reach farmers for their alertness, usage and perception in e-Agriculture. E-Agriculture

is a platform for supporting marketing of products related to agriculture. The work on E-

agriculture transported the information regarding agricultural details to farmers via message

and hereby projected to switch over E-agriculture. The details such as daily alert, seasonal

alert and other additional details could be sent to farmers. The daily alert could be sent to all

farmers whereas seasonal alert could be sent to farmers only for selected farmers based on

clustering result. Finally the other or additional detail which was proclaimed by agriculture

could be sent to all farmers. Experimental result showed better results when compared with

the existing work.

Mohan (2015) stated the importance of mobile in dissemination of agriculture

information among Indian farmers. Applications such as text and Multimedia Messaging

Service (MMS) and Voice Stream, are used to disseminate information to the farming

community. These applications are customized based on subjectivity such as literacy, usage

pattern, social acceptance, domain specific and lifestyle of rural farmers in various states.

These practices were nothing but innovative business models, which were adopted based on

user per capita. Most of the initiatives were push-based methods providing opportunity to fill

the knowledge transfer to fulfil the users’ basic needs. The mobile-based projects for farmers

had objectives, which benefited farmers and such projects were based on development

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agenda. These objectives suit market (input, output) paddy’s, availability status, agricultural

extension, social connectivity and financial-support systems. ICT initiatives have come a long

way in the last two decades in India in the Agriculture domain. The penetration of mobile

phone in the rural sector had opened up vast possibilities. Initially mobile was used as the

communication medium by rural sector but now it had been used as information

dissemination tool. This tool could also be used in the area of agriculture information, rural

health and rural education sector. There was a greater need to identify the underlying factors

that supported the adoption of mobile-based services in the rural sector so that a more focused

approach could be taken by the government agencies as well Private sector.

Sharma et al (2015) developed E-Agro Android Application. E-Agro offered

expertise service to farmers regarding cultivation of crops, pricing, fertilizers and diseases etc.

and even suggestions regarding modern techniques for cultivation, usage of bio-fertilizers.

Their main aim was concentrated on bringing the modern agricultural techniques to the

remote farmers. The persistently increasing importance and application of Information

Technologies in Agriculture had given birth to a new field called E-Agro, which focused on

improving agricultural and rural development through a variety of technologies. The user

interface of the application is in English.

Caine et al (2016) concluded on mobile applications for weather and climate

information: their use and potential for smallholder farmers. Mobile phones are gradually

being used to provide smallholder farmers with agricultural related information. There is

currently great curiosity in their scope to transfer climate and weather information. A

literature review, interviews with experts and 15 case study reviews were conducted. This

focused principally on Sub Saharan Africa but included examples from India also. The study

identified areas of substantial potential which include: the use of gradually available mobile

data connections to ensure locally relevant content was available to farmers in well-timed

fashion; development of decision making tools to enable farmers to interpret information for

their own contexts and management options.

Ghanshyam et al (2016) developed agronomy-an android application regarding

farmer utility. The availability of agricultural information directly to farmers by single tap of

their finger without him being dependent on anyone will enable the farmers to take superior

decisions shortly. This will not only substitute greater productivity but will improve a

farmer’s life reducing stress and also instilling enthusiasm to learn new technology which is

essential in this era of Digital Revolution. Some other areas whose information is regularly

required by farmers are about seeds and fertilizers, the loan schemes, etc. The application was

offered in 2 Indian regional languages but agricultural data from web services was only in

English.

CHAPTER III

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The software developer needs to consider the entire user requirements and must

follow proper software engineering approach while developing software/app. If systematic

approach is not followed the software development will become quite unmanageable task and

it might also fail to fulfil the needs of users. The Software development life cycle (SDLC) is a

prefect way out. It provides systematic outline for software development by dividing task into

various phases. Each phase has a beginning, an end, a series of specific activities and

deliverables. So there is a proper flow of activities and progress of task is clearly visible. For

development of aforesaid application, the software engineering approach has been used which

is as under:

3.1 Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)

The SDLC is a process that consists of a detailed plan describing how to develop,

maintain, replace and alter or enhance specific software. The life cycle defines a procedure for

improving the quality of software and the overall development process. SDLC consists of all

the steps of software starting from its inception to its implementation. The SDLC is a

methodology that forms the outline for planning and controlling the creation, testing and

delivery of a software. The SDLC is a sequence of phases that provide a model for the

development and lifecycle management of an application. The intent of a SDLC process is to

produce a product that is effective, fulfil users’ requirement and at the same time of high

quality. Once an application is formed, the SDLC maps the proper deployment and

maintenance of application. SDLC defines the chief stages of development life cycle which

are used by analyst, system designers and developers to plan and execute sequence of events

required to achieve a quality software or system at scheduled time and estimated cost. The

typical SDLC is composed of following phases:

3.1.1 System analysis

3.1.2 Feasibility analysis

3.1.3 Requirement analysis

3.1.4 System Design

3.1.5 Coding

3.1.6 Testing

3.1.7 Implementation

3.1.8 Maintenance

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3.1.1 System Analysis

This is the first and very important phase of SDLC. This phase is critical to the

success of the software. In this phase the needs of user for developing new software are

considered and also problems in existing system are identified. Requirement gathering is very

brainstorming phase as this is a brief investigation of the system under consideration and

gives a clear picture of expectations of user from new software. The initial system study

involves the planning of a system proposal which lists the definition of problem, objectives of

the study and terms of reference for study, Constraints, Expected benefits of the new system

etc. The system proposal is prepared by the system analyst and places it before the user for

approval. If user accepts the proposal the cycle proceeds to the next stage. The user may also

reject the proposal or request for some modifications in the proposal. The system study phase

passes through the following steps:

I. Existing system: A number of mobile based information systems exist in India that

is used to disseminate knowledge from technical institutes or researchers to non-

technical users like farmers. These system give farmers information about market

prices, weather, type of fertilizers, crop diseases etc. Still farmers are not able to get

full benefit from them. One reason is language barrier. As most of the information

system are in English and most rural agriculturists in India either can’t

communicate in English or hesitate to do so. So communication gap is there. Also

in India weather plays important role in agriculture. If farming activities are not

performed by considering weather conditions exploitation of resources is there. To

the best of author’s knowledge there is no such mobile based scheduling system

that considers weather conditions for reminding farmers about various farming

activities in regional language (Punjabi).

II. Proposed system: The aforesaid app is android based mobile app. It is mobile based

scheduling system gives farmers notification about various farming activities of

two crops wheat and paddy in regional language Punjabi. This overcomes language

barrier and farmers can get full benefit from it. This app also considers weather

conditions while notifying farmers and leads to sustainable farming.

The major operations which are performed by the aforesaid mobile based scheduling system

are:

The app gives notifications of farming activities of two crops that is wheat and paddy.

Each user has to first register himself and only then he can access the application.

Register user can turn on the notifications for particular crop by entering the date of

sowing of crop.

Register user can turn off the notifications any time.

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Registered user can also view upcoming activities of any month in advance.

The app also provides basic information about the type of seeds recommended by

PAU, fertilizers.

The user interface of app is in regional language Punjabi.

Weather is displayed in regional language Punjabi to improve the understandability of

farmers of weather conditions.

The administrator can view, update or delete information anytime through admin app.

Administrator can also enter new information.

The advantages of proposed system are:

This mobile based app has simple easy to use user interface and farmers can operate

it easily.

The app provides notification to user by considering weather conditions of his place.

This helps in sustainable use of resources.

Improves the productivity of crops by assisting farmer in farming activities.

Boon in today’s hectic life schedule.

Detailed information about type of seeds, fertilizers.

Easily accessed by users as smartphones are used by all these days.

Helps in sustainable use of resources.

3.1.2 Feasibility Analysis

Feasibility analysis is used to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of a proposed

project, in order to improve a project and accomplish desired results. The nature and

components of feasibility studies depend largely on the areas in which examined projects are

implemented. Feasibility is defined as the practical level to which a project can be

accomplished successfully. To estimate feasibility, a feasibility study is executed, which

decides whether the solution considered is practical and feasible in the software. Information

such as resource accessibility, cost approximation for software development, benefits of the

software to the association after it is developed and cost to be acquired on its maintenance are

measured during the feasibility study. The objective of the feasibility study is to establish the

motives for developing the software that is adequate to users, flexible to change and

conformable to established standards. Feasibility Analysis contains the following points:

Study the organizational system such as users, policies, functions and objectives.

Problem with the present system like its redundancies, inconstancies and other

inadequacies in functionality and performance which are evaluated by interviewing

users of the system.

After analyzing the present system, identifying main problems that are to be solved.

Identify different processes for solving problems.

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Different types of automation or computerization are considered to solve the existing

problems and finding possible alternatives.

On the basis of advantages and disadvantages of each alternative, feasibility study is

analyzed to come out with the best alternative.

The result is feasibility report for the project to be implemented.

Various types of feasibility that are commonly considered include technical feasibility,

operational feasibility and economic feasibility.

3.1.2.1 Technology and System Feasibility

The technical aspect discovers—if the project feasibility is within the boundaries of

current technology and does the technology exist at all, or if it is obtainable within given

resource constraints (i.e., budget, schedule). In the technical feasibility, the system experts

look between the necessities of the organization, such as,

Input device which can enter a huge quantity of data in the effective time

Output devices which can produce output in a bulk in an effective time

The choice of processing unit depends upon the type of processing prerequisite in the

organization.

Determine whether the technology used is stable and established.

Ease of learning

The scheduling app is android based app which is very stable and established technology.

3.1.2.2 Operational Feasibility

Operational feasibility is a measure of how healthy a proposed system resolves the

problems, and takes benefit of the opportunities recognized during scope definition and how it

accomplishes the requirements recognized in the requirements analysis phase of system

development. Operational feasibility assesses the willingness of the organization to support

the proposed system. Operational feasibility is dependent on human resources available for

the project and involves projecting whether the system will be utilized if it is developed and

implemented.

As the user interface of app is in regional language Punjabi, it removes language

barrier and farmers will be more interested in using this app.

3.1.2.3 Economic feasibility

Economic analysis could also be stated as cost/benefit analysis. It is the most

regularly used method for evaluating the usefulness of a new system. In economic analysis

the procedure is to regulate the benefits and savings that are expected from an aspirant system

and compare them with costs. If profits compensate costs, then the decision is made to design

and implement the system.

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The scheduling app improves the economic conditions of users (farmers) by

improving productivity of the crops. So it is economical to use this app as cost of smartphones

and internet access is very low these days.

3.1.3 Requirement Analysis

Requirements analysis comprises defining users’ needs and objectives in the

framework of planned customer use, environments, and recognized system characteristics to

determine necessities for system functions. Preceding analyses are studied and restructured,

refining mission and environment definitions to uphold system definition. The purpose of

Requirements Analysis is to:

Enhance customer objectives and requirements.

Define primary performance objectives and refine them into requirements;

Identify and outline constraints that bound solutions.

Define functional and performance requirements based on customer provided

measures of effectiveness.

3.1.3.1 Steps in the Requirement Analysis Process

i. Fix system boundaries

At this stage, scope of the proposed system is decided. As the scheduling app is in

regional language Punjabi so its scope are Punjabi farmers.

ii. Identify the customer

Next step in requirement analysis is to identify the ―users‖ of the software. This app

is designed for farmers so its main users are farmers who register themselves with the

app.

iii. Requirement gathering

In the requirement gathering stage, the information about various farming activities

and varieties of seeds, have been collected from PAU published books – Package of

Practices for the crops of Punjab and monthly magazine of PAU – Progressive

farming.

iv. Requirement Analysis Process

In this proposed system once all the user requirements have been gathered a

structured analysis and modelling of the requirements has done.

v. Requirement Specification

Requirement specification assists as an initial point for software and database design.

It terms the functions and performance of the system and the operational and user

interface constraints that will administrates system development. Software

Requirement Specification is a document which involves all the product requirements

to be designed and developed.

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3.1.4 System Design

Based on the user requirements and the thorough analysis of a new system, the new

system must be designed. This is the stage of system designing. It is the most critical phase in

the development of a system. The rational system design arrived at as a result of system

analysis and is transformed into physical system design. In the design phase the SDLC

procedure continues to move from the what questions of the analysis phase to the how. The

logical design shaped during the analysis is revolved into a physical design - a detailed

description of what is required to solve original problem. Input, output, codification schemes

databases, forms and processing specifications are drawn up in detail. In the design stage, the

language to be used for programming and the hardware and software platform in which the

new system will run are also decided. There are several tools and methods used for describing

the system design of the system. These tools and procedures are: Flowchart, Data flow

diagram (DFD), Data dictionary, Structured English, Decision table and Decision tree.

3.1.4.1 Data Flow Diagram

Data Flow Diagram (DFD) is a two-dimensional diagram that describes how data is

processed and transmitted in a system. The graphical depiction recognizes each source of data

and how it interacts with other data sources to reach a mutual output. In order to draft a data

flow diagram one must

Identify external inputs and outputs

Determine how the inputs and outputs relate to each other

Explain with graphics how these connections relate and what they result in.

Role of DFD:

It is a documentation support which is understood by both programmers and non-

programmers. As DFD postulates only what processes are accomplished not how

they are performed.

A physical DFD postulates where the data flows and who processes the data.

It permits analyst to isolate areas of interest in the organization and study them by

examining the data that enter the process and viewing how they are altered when

they leave.

i. DFD for users

The thorough proposed DFD for users is shown in Fig 3.1. This DFD postulates those

functions which the user can perform and these functions are:

1. Registration for a new account.

2. Login into app through registered account.

3. View weather information in Punjabi.

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4. View information about seeds of two crops, wheat and paddy, varieties of seeds

recommended by PAU.

5. View monthly schedule of wheat and paddy.

6. Set notification for farming activities.

Fig 3.1 DFD for users

ii. DFD for administrator

The detailed DFD of admin app is shown in Fig 3.2. DFD postulates the functions

which admin can perform and these are given below:

1. Add new information

2. View information of app

3. Update existing information

4. Delete existing information

Fig 3.2 DFD for admin

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3.1.4.2 Design of database tables

Table Name: farmer

Description: The Table 3.1 contains login and registration information of the users. This

table has fields like f_id, f_name, f_password, f_conpass and f_contact which stores farmer’s

id, farmer’s name, password, confirm password and farmer’s contact number respectively.

When user registers himself, the information of the user is stored in this table. When user tries

to login by entering his contact number and password, their value is checked against entries in

this table and if values get matched then user can successfully login into app.

Table 3.1: Structure of farmer table

Table Name: admin

Description: The Table 3.2 contains login information of administrator. This table has only

one user that administrates the app.

Table 3.2: Structure of admin table

Table Name: wheatOct

Description: The Table 3.3 contains information about monthly schedule of wheat crop of

October month. It has two fields notId and not. Similar tables having same structure, as that of

wheatOct table, are made for each month to store information of that particular month.

Table 3.3: Structure of wheatOct table

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Table Name: wheatseed

Description: The Table 3.4 contains information about the varieties of seed of wheat crop. It

has two fields seedId and seed. Similar table having same structure is made for paddy crop.

Table 3.4: Structure of wheatseed table

3.1.4.3 Strings.xml file

Some information is also written in string.xml file of android studio. Format of

string.xml file is:

text string

Where attribute ―name‖ specifies the unique name of string by which string is identified and

―text string‖ is data stored under that name.

Fig 3.3 String.xml file

3.1.5 Coding

The system design needs to be employed in order to make it a workable system. This

leads to the coding of design into computer language, i.e., programming language. This is also

known as the programming phase in which the programmer translates the program

specifications into computer instructions, which are known as programs. It is a significant

stage where the defined procedures are transformed into control provisions by the help of a

computer language. The programs synchronize the data movements and control the complete

23

process in a system. A well transcribed code reduces the testing and maintenance effort. It is

usually felt that the programs must be segmental in nature. This helps in fast development,

maintenance and future variations, if required.

The scheduling app is an android based system. For coding Android Studio Integrated

development environment is used in whose backend core Java language is used and database

is created through MySQL server.

3.1.6 Testing

Testing is the procedure of evaluating a system or its module(s) with the intent to find

whether it fulfills the identified requirements or not. In additional words, testing is executing

a system in order to recognize any gaps, errors, or missing necessities in contrary to the actual

requirements. Beforehand actually implementing the new system into actions, a trial run of

the system is done eliminating all the bugs, if any. It is a vital phase of a successful system.

After organizing the entire programs of the system, a test plan should be developed and run

on a given set of test data. The output of the test run should meet the expected results. The

succeeding test run are carried out for current system:

3.1.6.1 Unit testing

3.1.6.2 Integration testing

3.1.6.3 Program testing

3.1.6.4 System testing

3.1.6.1 Unit testing

The objective of unit testing is to segregate each part of the program and show that

individual parts are accurate in terms of requirements and functionality.

In the current app, each module interface has been tested to ensure its proper functioning.

3.1.6.2 Integration testing

After unit testing integration testing that is the testing of collective parts of an

application is done to govern if they function properly that is to ensure that no error is there in

flow of information from one module to another.

3.1.6.3 Program testing

When the programs have been coded and compiled and carried to working conditions,

they must be independently tested with the equipped test data. All verification and validation

be checked and any disagreeable trend must be noted and debugged.

3.1.6.4 System testing

Finally the whole system is tested jointly to ensure that it fulfills user requirements.

At this stage the test is done on real data. The results are studied to ensure that app is error

free. If any error is faced it is corrected accordingly and further tested for expected output.

The aforesaid app is tested for proper functioning as a whole and it gave desired

result and satisfies user requirement.

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3.1.7 Implementation

After having the user approval of the new system developed, the implementation

phase begins. Implementation is the phase of a project during which theory is turned into

practice. The major steps involved in this phase are:

Attainment and Installation of Hardware and Software

Conversion

User Training

Documentation

The scheduling app can be installed on any android based smartphone and its user

interface is so easy to operate that no user training is required.

3.1.8 Maintenance

Maintenance is essential to eradicate errors in the system during its working life and

to adjust the system to any deviations in its working environments. It must meet the

possibility of any future enhancement, future functionality and any other extra functional

features to cope up with the latest future needs. It has been seen that there are always few

errors found in the systems that must be noted and modified. It also means timely review of

the system. If a major alteration to a system is needed, a new project may need to be set up to

carry out the change. The new project will then go through all the above life cycle phases.

3.2 Proposed Software Tools

In the Requirement Analysis phase the requirements of the anticipated system are

identified and then converted into system design. In the design stage, the programming

language and the hardware and software platform in which the new system will run are also

decided. Following are the software tools proposed for the system development:

3.2.1 Android

Android is a mobile operating system (OS) based on the Linux kernel and developed

by Google. With a user interface based on direct manipulation, Android is designed primarily

for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers, with specialized

user interfaces for televisions (Android TV), cars (Android Auto), and wrist watches

(Android Wear). Android's default user interface is based on direct manipulation, using touch

inputs, that loosely correspond to real-world actions, like swiping, tapping, pinching, and

reverse pinching to manipulate on-screen objects, and a virtual keyboard. The response to

user input is designed to be immediate and provides a fluid touch interface, often using the

vibration capabilities of the device to provide hepatic feedback to the user. Internal hardware

such as accelerometers, gyroscopes and proximity sensors are used by some applications to

respond to additional user actions. Android comes with an Android market which is an online

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software store. It allows Android users to select, and download applications developed by

third party developers and use them.

Android is open source and anyone can use it to build applications. Android provides

a rich application framework that allows one to build innovative apps and games for mobile

devices in a Java language environment. Android apps are built as a combination of distinct

components that can be invoked individually. For instance, an individual activity provides a

single screen for a user interface, and a service independently performs work in the

background. From one component one can start another component using an intent. One can

even start a component in a different app, such as an activity in a maps app to show an

address. This model provides multiple entry points for a single app and allows any app to

behave as a user's "default" for an action that other apps may invoke.

3.2.1.1 Application

Android apps are written in the Java programming language. The Android Software

development Kit(SDK) tools compile code—along with any data and resource files—into an

Android package (APK), which is an archive file with an .apk suffix. One APK file contains

all the contents of an Android app and is the file that Android-powered devices use to install

the app. Once installed on a device, each Android app lives in its own security sandbox:

The Android operating system is a multi-user Linux system in which each app is a

different user.

By default, the system assigns each app a unique Linux user Identity(ID). The system

sets permissions for all the files in an app so that only the user ID assigned to that app

can access them.

Each process has its own virtual machine, so an app's code runs in isolation from

other apps.

By default, every app runs in its own Linux process. Android starts the process when

any of the app's components need to be executed, then shuts down the process when

it's no longer needed or when the system must recover memory for other apps.

In this way, the Android system implements the principle of least privilege. That is, each app,

by default, has access only to the components that it requires to do its work and no more. This

creates a very secure environment in which an app cannot access parts of the system for

which it is not given permission.

i. App Components

App components are the essential building blocks of an Android app. Each

component is a different point through which the system can enter your app. Not all

components are actual entry points for the user and some depend on each other, but each one

exists as its own entity and plays a specific role—each one is a unique building block that

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helps define app's overall behavior. There are four different types of app components. Each

type serves a distinct purpose and has a distinct lifecycle that defines how the component is

created and destroyed. The components are:

Activities: An activity represents a single screen with a user interface. For example,

an email app might have one activity that shows a list of new emails, another activity

to compose an email, and another activity for reading emails. Although the activities

work together to form a cohesive user experience in the email app, each one is

independent of the others. As such, a different app can start any one of these activities

(if the email app allows it). For example, a camera app can start the activity in the

email app that composes new mail, in order for the user to share a picture.

Fig 3.4 Android Cycle

Android system initiates its program with in an Activity starting with a call on onCreate()

callback method. There is a sequence of callback methods that start up an activity and a

sequence of callback methods that tear down an activity.

Services: A service is a component that runs in the background to perform long-

running operations or to perform work for remote processes. A service does not

provide a user interface. For example, a service might play music in the background

while the user is in a different app, or it might fetch data over the network without

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blocking user interaction with an activity. Another component, such as an activity,

can start the service and let it run or bind to it in order to interact with it.

Content Providers: A content provider manages a shared set of app data. One can

store the data in the file system, an SQLite database, on the web, or any other

persistent storage location app can access. Through the content provider, other apps

can query or even modify the data (if the content provider allows it). Content

providers are also useful for reading and writing data that is private to app and not

shared. For example, the Note Pad sample app uses a content provider to save notes.

A content provider is implemented as a subclass of ContentProvider and must

implement a standard set of APIs that enable other apps to perform transactions.

Broadcast Receivers: A broadcast receiver is a component that responds to system-

wide broadcast announcements. Many broadcasts originate from the system—for

example, a broadcast announcing that the screen has turned off, the battery is low, or

a picture was captured. Apps can also initiate broadcasts—for example, to let other

apps know that some data has been downloaded to the device and is available for

them to use. Although broadcast receivers don't display a user interface, they may

create a status bar notification to alert the user when a broadcast event occurs. More

commonly, though, a broadcast receiver is just a "gateway" to other components and

is intended to do a very minimal amount of work. For instance, it might initiate a

service to perform some work based on the event. A broadcast receiver is

implemented as a subclass of BroadcastReceiver and each broadcast is delivered as an

Intent object.

ii. Activating Components

Three of the four component types—activities, services, and broadcast receivers—are

activated by an asynchronous message called an intent. Intents bind individual components to

each other at runtime, whether the component belongs to app or another.

Intent is created with an Intent object, which defines a message to activate either a

specific component or a specific type of component—intent can be either explicit or implicit,

respectively. For activities and services, intent defines the action to perform (for example, to

"view" or "send" something) and may specify the Uniform Resource Locator (URI) of the

data to act on (among other things that the component being started might need to know). For

example, intent might convey a request for an activity to show an image or to open a web

page. In some cases, one can start an activity to receive a result, in which case, the activity

also returns the result in an Intent. For broadcast receivers, the intent simply defines the

announcement being broadcast.

The other component type, content provider, is not activated by intents. Rather, it is

activated when targeted by a request from a ContentResolver. The content resolver handles all

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direct transactions with the content provider so that the component that's performing

transactions with the provider doesn't need to and instead calls methods on the

ContentResolver object. This leaves a layer of abstraction between the content provider and

the component requesting information (for security). There are separate methods for

activating each type of component:

One can start an activity by passing an Intent to startActivity() or

startActivityForResult() (when you want the activity to return a result).

One can start a service (or give new instructions to an ongoing service) by passing an

Intent to startService(). Or one can bind to the service by passing an Intent to

bindService().

One can initiate a broadcast by passing an Intent to methods like sendBroadcast(),

sendOrderedBroadcast(), or sendStickyBroadcast().

One can perform a query to a content provider by calling query() on a

ContentResolver.

iii. The Manifest File

Before the Android system can start an app component, the system must know that the

component exists by reading the app's AndroidManifest.xml file (the "manifest" file). App

must declare all its components in this file, which must be at the root of the app project

directory. The manifest does a number of things in addition to declaring the app's

components, such as:

Identify any user permissions the app requires, such as Internet access or read-access

to the user's contacts.

Declare the minimum Application Programming Interface (API) Level required by

the app, based on which APIs the app uses.

Declare hardware and software features used or required by the app, such as a

camera, bluetooth services, or a multitouch screen.

API libraries the app needs to be linked against (other than the Android framework

APIs), such as the Google Maps library.

iv. App Resources

An Android app is composed of more than just code—it requires resources that are

separate from the source code, such as images, audio files, and anything relating to the visual

presentation of the app. For example, one should define animations, menus, styles, colors, and

the layout of activity user interfaces with XML (Xtensible Markup Language) files. Using

app resources makes it easy to update various characteristics of app without modifying code

and—by providing sets of alternative resources. For every resource that one include in

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Android project, the SDK build tools define a unique integer ID, which one can use to

reference the resource from app code or from other resources defined in XML.

One of the most important aspects of providing resources separate from source code

is the ability for one to provide alternative resources for different device configurations. For

example, by defining user Interface(UI) strings in XML, one can translate the strings into

other languages and save those strings in separate files. Then, based on a language qualifier

that one append to the resource directory's name (such as res/values-fr/ for French string

values) and the user's language setting, the Android system applies the appropriate language

strings to UI.

3.2.1.2 User Interface (UI)

All user interface elements in an Android app are built using View and ViewGroup

objects. A View is an object that draws something on the screen that the user can interact

with. A ViewGroup is an object that holds other View (and ViewGroup) objects in order to

define the layout of the interface. Android provides a collection of both View and ViewGroup

subclasses that offer common input controls (such as buttons and text fields) and various

layout models.

i. Layout

A layout defines the visual structure for a user interface, such as the UI for an activity

or app widget. One can declare a layout in two ways:

Declare UI elements in XML: Android provides a straightforward XML vocabulary

that corresponds to the View classes and subclasses, such as those for widgets and

layouts.

Instantiate layout elements at runtime: Application can create View and ViewGroup

objects (and manipulate their properties) programmatically.

The Android framework gives one the flexibility to use either or both of these methods for

declaring and managing application's UI. For example, one could declare application's default

layouts in XML, including the screen elements that will appear in them and their properties

and then add code in application that would modify the state of the screen objects, including

those declared in XML, at run time.

The advantage to declaring UI in XML is that it enables one to better sepa

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