Automated Irrigation System using WSN and GPRS/GSM

Electronics-Wireless sensor networks

Fresh water is the basic need of living organisms on earth. The fresh water is consumed by living beings to be alive including plants and animals. The amount of fresh water available is limited. Also; population has increased as compared to available water and food resources. Agriculture consumes about 85% of the total fresh water quantity available and hence, there is an urgent need to create strategies based on science and technology for sustainable use of water, including technical, agronomic, managerial & institutional improvements. There are many systems using various techniques to achieve water savings in various agricultural practices. The system using remote access and wireless communication is discussed in this paper. The system explained here is a network of wireless sensors and a wireless base station to process the sensor data to automate the irrigation system. The sensors are soil moisture sensor, air and soil temperature sensor. The Base station microcontroller is programmed such that if the either soil moisture or temperature parameters cross a predefined threshold level, the irrigation system is automated, i.e. the motor relay that is connected to water pump, switches to ON otherwise OFF. The system will have a distributed wireless network of soil-moisture and soil temperature sensors, placed in the root zone of the plants. An atmospheric temperature sensor is used to measure atmospheric temperature in field. In addition, a gateway unit will handle sensor information, trigger actuators, and transmit data to a control station. An algorithm with threshold values of soil temperature and soil moisture will be programmed into a microcontroller-based gateway to control water motor switching to supply water based on the information collected. The system will be powered by solar panels (Optional for prototype). This system can achieve water savings up to as much as 70% compared with traditional irrigation practices used. Because of its energy autonomy and low cost, the system has the potential to be useful in water limited geographically isolated areas.

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