An embedded system for automatic irrigation

Abstract

In crop production a healthy water balance is essential for high quality yields. Under watered crops suffer from nutrient deficiencies while over-watered plants are more susceptible to diseases pressure and can in some cases lead to root death through suffocation. Also, over-watered plants are not able to withstand dry spells during dry season. The aim of this project is to use control engineering principles and concepts to provide a microcontroller-based irrigation system. The system will help in saving money and water and at the same time increasing crops production. The automated irrigation system is controlled using PIC 18F452 micro-controller-based platform which is in position to offer suggestions to a farmer the type of crops suitable for particular soil. The system is programmed via the microcontroller to give interrupt signal to the irrigation system, depending on the soil moisture levels. The soil moisture or humidity levels are checked using soil moisture sensor. Whenever there is a change in moisture or humidity in the soil this sensor senses the change and gives an interrupt signal to the micro-controller and thus the watering system is activated or deactivated. An emergency is a deviation from planned or expected behavior or a course of event that endangers or adversely affects farmers, property, or the environment. This project deals with the different sensor networks, where we able to program a GSM module incorporating a IR detector to report automatically via the GSM communication platform (using SMS messaging) to get the information about the soil moisture giving the exact condition of the soil. This project will help in the growth of agriculture, in order to considering security of the field. The project reports give the explanation of every component used and detailed working of the module and gives appropriate conclusions.