International Journal of Electrical, Electronics and Computer Systems (IJEECS)
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
Automatic Irrigation System
1Archana Shirke, 2Dharini Iyer, 3Arti Patil, 4Chetan Luhiya, 5Vivek Prajapati
1Assistant Professor
Department of Information Technology
Fr .Conceicao Rodrigues Institute of Technology, Navi Mumbai, Indi Email: 1[email protected]
Abstract— Agriculture is a very unpredictable occupation.
The yield depends on a complex combination of a lot of factors like irrigation, climate, fertility of soil, and freedom from pests. Thus, the farmer has to take care of a lot of factors simultaneously. The proposed system aims to help the farmer focus on other aspects of agriculture, by automating the entire process of irrigation.
Irrigation of a field is releasing the amount of water required by the crops depending on the amount of water that can be absorbed by the soil. It also depends on the climatic factors, the most important of them being – air temperature and soil moisture. The system uses sensors to sense air temperature and soil moisture from the field.
Using the sensed parameters, this system calculates the optimum amount of water to be released. The system then releases the calculated amount of water into the field. By releasing neither too much of water nor too less of it, the system ensures the efficient and effective use of water and also prevents the wilting of crops.
Index Terms— Demand, Yield, Farmer, Intuition, Factors of environment, Optimum rate.
I. INTRODUCTION
A field has to be watered every day and may even require to be watered many times in a day. A farmer has to water the crops, gauging what will be the correct amount of water and at what rate the water must be released, determined by the various types of irrigation like drip and sprinkler irrigation. The farmer has to go to the field and calculate, with the help of his intuition and experience, the amount of water that has to be released.
This system aims to help the farmer focus on other aspects of agriculture, by automating the entire process of irrigation.
A. Growth of Crops
The growth of crops involves a lot of factors and these factors have to be monitored very carefully for their
healthy growth. But, precisely, there are three important things which are needed for the growth of a crop:
Soil. A crop is cannot be grown in any soil and a soil is not suitable to all crops. A particular crop can grow only on certain types of soil.
Water. Only freshwater can be used to irrigate the crops. Salt water cannot be used to water the crops. Agriculture requires withdrawal from freshwater resources. Agriculture is a major draw on water from aquifers.
Sunlight and climate. Climate has the potential to affect agriculture through changes in temperature, rainfall (timing and quantity), CO2, sunlight and the interaction of these elements.
B. Water
Water is one of the most important factors for the growth of crops. Irrigation of the field takes care of this factor.
Sunlight and climate change are natural factors and cannot be controlled. Soil in a particular field remains the same for a long period of time.
Thus, irrigation is a factor of agriculture that is in the control of the human being and by effectively managing the process of irrigation, the healthy growth of the crops can be ensured to some extent.
When the farmer irrigates the crops, he/she considers the following parameters of daily irrigation :
Number of times the field has to be irrigated
Amount of water or the time for which water has to be released during each irrigation
Based on this, farmer can follow two types of irrigation systems :
Time-based system : In this, time is the basis of irrigation. Time of operation is calculated according to volume of water required and the average flow rate of water. Water is released for that time. It is approximate in nature.
Volume-based system : In this, volume of water is the basis of irrigation. Amount of water to be supplied is computed and then released. It is comparatively accurate than time-based system.
C. Irrigation Factors
The various parameters of daily irrigation as mentioned before are :
1) Number of times the field has to be irrigated : This depends on the air temperature. Usually, the field is irrigated two times in a day and if the temperature is high, then three times in a day.
2) Amount of water or the time for which water has to be released during each irrigation : This depends on the properties of :
a) Soil : The properties of soil which are considered are – soil moisture, soil water holding capacity, soil absorption rate.
b) Crop : The property of crop which is considered is the water requirement of the crop for a season.
Field : The property of field which is considered is the area.
D. Dependencies of Irrigation Factors
The dependencies of the parameters of daily irrigation on the various factors are :
If (temperature of air > 45 0 C), number of times the field has to be irrigated is 3 – morning, afternoon and evening.
Else number of times the field has to be irrigated is 2 – morning and afternoon.
Current volume of water in soil = (Soil moisture in % / 100) * Soil water holding capacity
Required volume of water by soil = Crop water requirement / Length of season of growth for crop
Volume of water that will lead to wilting of the crop = Wilting point moisture of crop * Area of field
Amount of water to be released = Wilt volume – Current volume + Required volume
Rate at which water will be released = Absorption rate of soil / Maximum rate of pump installed in the field.[3]
II. RELATED WORK
A. Harvest Bot
Harvest Bots are small electronic devices equipped with sensors that when deployed in your garden monitors the vitals, communicates the information back to the cloud and allows you to automate equipment based on real- time data [5]. Each unit has specialized functionality which gives it the versatility to be used in large commercial indoor operations as well as small personal gardens.
It records –
Air Temperature
Relative Humidity
Luminosity
Soil Moisture
CO2
Water temperature
There is no automation of irrigation in this case.
Irrigation has to be still done manually.[5]
B. Assisted Gardening It consists of –
Arduino
Relay
Light sensor
Soil moisture sensor
Water pump
The water pump is controlled through a relay wired to the Arduino. Temperature is read by means of a thermistor which gives fairly accurate readings. The system uses the light sensor to determine whether enough sunlight is being received by the plants. Soil moisture is measured by ordinary galvanized nails.
It uses the readings from the soil moisture sensor and soil temperature sensor to compute whether the garden needs watering. If watering is needed, the water pump is simply switched on and the sensor readings are monitored. If necessary, extra light is also switched on. Once the moisture levels reaches above an acceptable moisture level, the water pump is simply switched off. The water pump operates in two modes only, namely, on and off.
The rate of the pump cannot be adjusted according to the soil.[6]
________________________________________________________________________________
III. PROPOSED SYSTEM
Automatic Irrigation System is a client – server based system. The client is located on the field and the server is located at a remote location and can handle many clients.
The system uses a combination of the volume and time based irrigation system.
The client has sensors attached to it. It is directly attached to the pump. It senses the air temperature and soil moisture using the sensors and sends it to the server.
The server contains a database that contains the factors affecting the parameters of irrigation. It calculates the parameters of daily irrigation using the values obtained from the client and also the factors affecting the parameters of daily irrigation, according to the crop and the soil. The server then calculates the rate at which the pump has to be run, according to the soil. From the amount of water and the rate of release, time of release is calculated. The server then sends the rate and time of release to the client. The client sets the rate of the pump to the value received from the server for the time received from the server.
Fig1 : System Architecture A. Automatic Irrigation System Server 1) Database
The database stores all the information pertaining to soil and crop factors which influence the water requirement of the crop.
The soil factors consist of –
Water holding capacity
Type
Absorption rate The crop factors consist of –
Water or moisture requirement per season
Variety
Database interface helps the higher level system components have access to the database. It sends the soil and crop information upon request to the core application logic while stores the logging information as obtained from the logger module.
2) Application Logic
It is the central processing point of the system. It takes the soil and crop related data from the database via the database interface and the temperature and moisture readings via the web interface, computes the water to be irrigated and the rate with which irrigation is to be done and sends those results back to the client via the web interface.
3) Website
All communications with the client takes place through the website. All communications use the standard Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) via the web.
B. Automatic Irrigation System Client 1) Pump Control Unit
The pump is the last node controllable by the system. It receives signals from a control unit which might be electric/valve based, depending upon the existing plumbing system. This unit receives signals from the signaling unit and accordingly adjusts pump speed.
2) Temperature Sensor
Senses the ambient temperature required for the water requirement computation by the server. Only one is sufficient for a field.
3) Soil Moisture Sensor
It senses the soil moisture levels at different points in the soil which is required for water requirement computation by the server.
4) Microcontroller
This is the hardware which handles all client-side processing and is the heart of the client-side system.
5) GSM/GPRS Module
Interfaced with the microcontroller, it provides a web- based communication via GSM/GPRS to interact with the server. The sensor readings are sent as request to the server and water requirement and rate of irrigation are obtained as response via the HTTP protocol.
IV. IMPLEMENTATION
The system is implemented as a client – server system.
The client is installed in the field and the server is present in a remote location. The server handles many clients at a time.
A. Client
The client is implemented in a microcontroller. The microcontroller that has been used in this project is the Arduino.
There are 2 sensors – temperature and moisture. The sensors are attached to the microcontroller.
The GSM/GPRS module is also attached to the microcontroller.
The pump is connected to the microcontroller with the help of a switch.
B. Sever
The server is configured to be a web server with the help of IIS.
The application is continuously running with the help of the IIS server.
The application receives and sends messages to the client with the help of HTTP.
C. Working
The server sends a signal to the client. If it is summer, the server will send the signal 3 times in a day to the client else it will send the signal 2 times in a day to the client.
On receiving the signal from the server, the client sends the temperature and moisture to the server.
The server, on receiving the temperature and moisture, calculates the appropriate amount of water that should be released and the number of times the field is to be irrigated. The server then sends the amount of water to be released to the client in terms of the rate and time for which the pump must be run. If the temperature exceeds 45, the server sends a signal to the client 2 more times, else, it sends a signal to the client only one more time.
The client, on receiving the rate and time for which the pump must be run, with the help of the pump control unit, switches on the pump at the particular speed. It then switches off the pump after the particular time. The client takes an average of the temperature and moisture values from the various sensors that are connected to it.
V. SIMULATION AND RESULT ANALYSIS
For the purpose of the project, 2 small model fields were created by filling 2 trays with some soil and putting wheat in them. Out of these 1 was irrigated manually and the other was irrigated with the help of the Automatic Irrigation System. The amount of water (in
Litres) that they require in each week of the 12 weeks of their growing cycle was monitored.
The results for the Automatic Irrigation System are as follows –
Time ( in weeks )
Volume ( in Litres )
1 11.06
2 10.5
3 9.24
4 9.94
5 10.01
6 9.92
7 9.53
8 9.77
9 9.81
10 10.37
11 10.17
12 10.06
Table 1 : Automatic Irrigation System irrigation The results for the manual system are as follows –
Time (weeks) Volume ( in Litres )
1 12
2 10.5
3 10
4 10
5 10
6 9.5
7 9.5
8 9
9 9.5
10 10.5
11 10
12 10
Table 2 : Manual irrigation
The comparative results of the Automatic Irrigation System and manual irrigation are –
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
1 3 5 7 9 11
Volume of water ( Litres )
Week
Automatic Irrigation System Manual System
Fig 2 : Comparison of Automatic Irrigation System and manual system
________________________________________________________________________________
VI. ADVANTAGES
The system takes into consideration all the features that affect irrigation.
The rate of release of water can also be controlled.
The system completely automates irrigation process.
The system can handle failures such as server failure and sensor malfunction automatically.
VII. LIMITATIONS
The system assumes that a network already exists and build on top of that network.
When there is no electricity, or when there is soma fault in the GSM network, the system cannot handle the failure and only an alert can be sent to the client.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to convey our sincere and heartfelt thanks to our Principal Dr. Rollin Fernandes for giving us this opportunity to show case our skills. We would like to thank Head of Information Technology Department Prof.
H. K. Kaura for his constant support and motivation. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to our Project Guide Prof. Mrs. Archana Shirke who helped us throughout the project and gave us her valuable time and advice, contributing her experience and knowledge. We thank our Information Technology Department Lab In- Charges & Lab assistants who have willingly co-operated with us in resolving our queries & providing us with all the required help on time.
REFERENCES
[1] Blaine Hanson and Steve Orloff, “Measuring Soil Moisture”, University of California, 1998.
[2] www.harvestgeek.com [3] www.gardenbot.org
