Smart Irrigation System Using Arduino

Abstract

Agriculture is a source of livelihood of majority Indians and has great impact on the economy of the country. In dry areas or in case of inadequate rainfall, irrigation becomes difficult. So, it needs to be automated for proper yield and handled remotely for farmer safety. Increasing energy costs and decreasing water supplies point out the need for better water management. Irrigation management is a complex decision making process to determine when and how much water to apply to a growing crop to meet specific management objectives. If the farmer is far From the agricultural land he will not be noticed of current conditions. So, efficient water management plays an important role in the irrigated agricultural cropping systems. A low cost alternative solution for efficient water management currently in use is drip irrigation systems that consist of an automated controller to turn on & off the control values, which in turn helps the farmers by managing the water supply to the crop fields and further maintains the moisture levels of soil that helps in better crop production. This project probes into the design of the automated irrigation system based on Arduino. This Embedded project is to design and develop a low cost feature which is based on embedded platform for water irrigation system. This project uses temperature and soil moisture sensors to detect the water quantity present in agriculture. The project uses Arduino micro controller which is controller to process the information. The aim of the implementation was to demonstrate that the automatic irrigation can be used to reduce water use.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

Smart irrigation is an irrigation system that takes into account either the weather or soil conditions to define its watering processes. The main goal for irrigation is to provide plants with the proper amount of water at the best time. The purpose of this project is to sense the moisture content in the soil and then supply the sufficient water for Irrigation of plants. The logic of this system is very simple. In this system, the moisture sensor senses the moisture level of the soil and when the sensor senses a low moisture level it automatically switches the water pump with the help of a microcontroller and irrigates the plant. By using the concept of modern irrigation system a farmer can save water up to 50%. This concept depends on two irrigation methods those are: conventional irrigation methods like overhead sprinklers, flood type feeding systems i.e. wet the lower leaves and stem of the plants. The area between the crop rows become dry as the large amount of water is consumed by the flood type methods, in which case the farmer depends only on the incidental rainfalls. The crops are been infected by the leaf mold fungi as the soil surface often stays wet and is saturated after irrigation is completed.

Overcoming these drawbacks new techniques are been adopted in the irrigation techniques, through which small amounts of water applies to the parts of root zone of a plant. The plant soil moisture stress is prevented by providing required amount of water resources frequently or often daily by which the moisture condition of the soil will retain well. The diagram below shows the entire concept of the modern irrigation system. The traditional techniques like sprinkler or surface irrigation requires / uses nearly half of water sources. Even more precise amounts of water can be supplied for plants. As far as the foliage is dry the plant damage due to disease and insects will be reduced, which further reduces the operating cost. The dry rows between plants will leads to continuous federations during the irrigation process.  Fertilizers can be applied through this type of system, and the cost required for will also reduces. The erosion of soil and wind is much reduced by the recent techniques when compared with overhead sprinkler systems. The soil characteristics will define the form of the dripping nature in the root zone of a plant which receives moisture. After supplying sufficient water, the soil gets retains the moisture hence automatically stopping the pump.

II. OBJECTIVES

1. To save farmers effort, water and time. Irrigation management is a complex decision making process to determine when and how much water to apply to a growing crop to meet specific management objectives.
2. There is an urgent need for a system that makes the agricultural process easier and burden free from the farmer’s side.
3. The ability to conserve the natural resources as well as giving a splendid boost to the production of the crops is one of the main aims of incorporating such technology into the agricultural domain of the country.

III. SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

With this automation system, it will have a big impact in the field of technology in order to invent something that can control any system from a faraway distance. The primary applications for this project are for farmers and gardeners who do not have enough time to water their crops/plants. It also covers those farmers who are wasteful of water during irrigation. As water supplies become scarce and polluted, there is a need to irrigate more efficiently in order to minimize chemical leaching. Water sensing make the commercial use of this technology possible to automate irrigation .

Finally, connect the pump to the relay module. A relay module has 3 connection points which are common, normally closed, and normally open. We have to connect the pump positive to common and connect the normally open pin to the positive of the battery. You have to select the battery as per your pump. The next step is to connect the ground of the pump to the ground of the Arduino and finally, connect the small hose to the water pump. Now connect the battery to the circuit and if the pump starts working then your circuit is okay. Now let's upload code to Arduino.

IX. DISCUSSION

The present work is one such simple approach to build a model of Smart Irrigation system using Arduino. The results are obtained by implementing the proposed work discussed here that is early irrigation system was totally dependent on human efforts that substituted with fully automated irrigation control system.

X. FUTURE SCOPE

The primary applications for this project are for farmers and gardeners who do not have enough time to water their crops/plants. It also covers those farmers who are wasteful of water during irrigation. As water supplies become scarce and polluted, there is a need to irrigate more  efficiently in order to minimize chemical leaching. Water sensing make the commercial use of this technology possible to automate  irrigation .

Conclusion

The primary applications for this project are for farmers and gardeners who do not have enough time to water their crops/plants. It also covers those farmers who are wasteful of water during irrigation. As water supplies become scarce and polluted, there is a need to irrigate more efficiently in order to minimize water use and chemical leaching. Recent advances in soil water sensing make the commercial use of this technology possible to automate irrigation management for vegetable production. However, research indicates that different sensors types perform under all conditions with no negative impact on crop yields with reductions in water use range as high as 70% compared to traditional practices.

References

[1] SMAJSTRLA, A.G.; KOO, R.C...(1 9 8 6 ). \"Applied engineering in agriculture\". [2] CLEMENS, A.J. (1990).Feedback Control for Surface Irrigation Management? in: Visions of the Future. ASAE Publication 04-90. American Soceity of Agricultural. [3] Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan, pp.255-260. [4] SCOTT MAC. KENZIE, The 8051 micro controller, second edition, pretice hall Inc., USA, (1995) pp. 81 - 94. [5] SMAJSTRLA, A.G.; LOCASCIO, S.J. (1996). \"Drip irrigation scheduling of tomato\",12(3):312-319. [6] JOHN B PEATMEN, Design with micro controllers, Mc-Graw Hill, USA, (1996). [7] https://circuitdigest.com/microcontroller-projects/automatic-irrigation-systemusing-arduino-uno.?

Copyright

Copyright © 2023 Girisha K M, Jahnavi N, Kavyashree Y K, Asfa Fathima N. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.