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 Research Journal of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences __________________________________
______________________________ ISSN 2320-6063
Vol. 5(6), 15-19, June (2017) Res. J. Agriculture and Forestry Sci.

Review Paper
Solar powered smart irrigation system
system-an
an innovative concept
Alok Gora1* and M.S. Dulawat2
1
Department of Agricultural Engineering, C.P. College of Agriculture, SDAU, SK Nagar, Gujarat, India
2
Dept. of Farm Machinery and Power, College of Agri
Agri. Engineering & Tech.,, Junagadh Agricultural University, Junagadh,
Junagadh Gujarat-362001, India
[email protected]
Available online at: www.isca.in, www.isca.me
Received 1st May 2017, revised 22nd May 2017, accepted 3rd June 2017
2

Abstract
Irrigation is one of the important process in agricultural system. Generally it is dependent on rain but after introduction of
pressurized irrigation system the dependency of rain is decreased day by day. The pressurized irrigation system is controlled
manually by the farmers. Manually operated ssystem
ystem requires extra manpower for supervising therefore it decreases the field
efficiency. Sometimes this irrigation leads to over irrigation than the actual plant requirement and under irrigation when
plants required more water in their peak periods. Whic
Whichh result slow crop growth rate, late flowering and reduction of the
yield are the major concern due to water deficiency. Moreover, excess irrigation in the root zones leads to ill health of the
root zones and vegetation, additional cost for farmer, wastage of time and water. Also salinity of the land can be increased
by unbroken stretch supply of more than enough water. On the other hand electricity supply is the major concern in remote
areas. Farmers are not getting regular supply of electricity for agricu
agriculture
lture operations. Hence this paper introduces a new
approach for solar powered smart irrigation system (SIS) in agricultural management using soil moisture sensor. Based on
the sensed data, system automatically decided about the necessary action for irriga
irrigation
tion and also notifies the user. The system
also focused on the use of solar energy utilization by the sensors during communication. The paper discussed the working
mechanism and component details of system.

Keywords: Solar energy, Soil moisture sensor, Irrigation system, Microcontroller.

Introduction the soil which sends signal to electronic decision making unit
microcontroller whether agriculture field needs water or not.
A proper technique is to be required for the irrigation process The signal from the sensor received through the output of the
because of uncertainty of rain and scarcity of water in land. The comparator and it is preceded with instruction from the program
water level of the soil always influences agriculture. The stored in the microcontroller2. When the soil is in dry state
production of agriculture produce is directly proportional to the motor gets ON automatically and in wet state motor is OF when
water level and quality of soil. Moisture level of soil is reducing moisture reached at its preset value. This condition of motor ON
day by day because of continuous withdrawal of water from soil and OFF is displayed on a LCD. The whole system is totally
to avoid
id this problem there is a need to planned proper irrigation using the renewable source of energy by using solar
system. Inappropriate use of water leads to wastage of large photovoltaic cells. This cells coverts sunlight into electricity
amount of water. On the other hand energy is also a major which can be used directly of can be stored in battery. The
concern in India. It is reported that total annual energy electricity
ity is used to run electric devices.
consumption is 168913913 Giga Watt Hours (GWh) in agriculture
sector in 2014-15 15 which is 17.81% of total electricity There are two major components one is soil moisture sensor and
consumption1. It is required to develop a SIS using moisture other is solar energy, maintained the irrigation in the field. If
sensor and solar energy which provide the accurate amount of the required level of water is not provided then the plant will die
water according to the requirement of field. The proposed and results in low production3. Hence there is a need to provide
system is operated by using sunlight through photovoltaic cells. exact amount of water to the right place. This can be achieved
This system consists of soil moisture sensors which are installed by soil moisture sensor. The moisture sensor is used to provide
under the soil to detect the moisture whether the soil is dry or proper irrigation according to crop requirement. By the use of
wet. A microcontroller is a heart of the unit which controls the soil moisture farmer can provide optimum water to their crop
whole system. The relay unit is connected to the motor and which increase production as well as quality of crop.
received signal from the soil moisture sensor when the moisture
level in the soil goes down. The motor will ON automatically in Existing System
dry state and switch off when the soil is un under wet state. The
moisture level of soil is detected by the sensor installed under In India, agriculture field is irrigated by manually in most of the
cases. This system is time consuming and required lots of labor

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Vol. 5(6), 15-19, June (2017) Res. J. Agriculture and Forestry Sci.

for observing
ng the health and productivity of crop. This system is water through solenoid valves. Hence, the moisture difference is
much more costly than automatic system when considering the proportional to the amount of water flowing in i the field. The
labor’s salary. The farmer himself has to check the wet level of microcontroller is further connected to Global System for
the land and has to make a Judgment whether the field has need Mobile Communication (GSMC) which is used to send SMS to
of water or not.
ot. This way of carefully looking at the wet level is the user for real time monitoring from remote location4.
not accurate and this drawback can be eliminated by using soil
moisture sensor which is been used in our architecture. If the moisture value is less than the preset value then the
system
m will automatically open the solenoid valves. The
Working of System solenoid valves in the pipe will open for prescribed time and
then automatically closed. As the entire system will be triggered
The proposed system having two working units: one is solar for every 1 hour, it is more sufficient for a plant to maintain the
pumping unit and other is smart irrigation unit. The solar moisture required for it.
pumping unit is utilizing the solar energy to operate the pump.
The solar energy is converted into electric energy with Likewise the water level sensor in the tank will screen the water
photovoltaic cells which are installed near the pump set. A level inside the tank and in the event that it is lower than the
controller circuit is designed forr controlling the batteries. fundamental parameter, the system will begin the motor to
pump the water from the well. For every one of the th occasions,
On the other hand smart irrigation unit is equipped with the data about the status of the water level, motor on/off,
electronically controlled solenoid valve. This valve regulated by moisture level is communicated to the client through SMS.
soil moisture sensing unit and used to control the flow of water. Since all the nodes are powered by solar energy from the solar
The sensors indicate moisture in termss of voltage. This voltage panel, the system will reduce the energy supply problem also.
signal is send to sensing unit and is compared to the reference
voltage which can be set by the farmer according to the crop The flowchart will explain the complete process of the system.
requirement. The difference of these voltages is directly The system is designed in such a way to minimize the cost of
proportional to the water requirement. Then tthe sensing unit is communication between sensors (Figure-3).
(Figure
given signal to the motor whose revolving angle is dependent to
the difference in voltage. The motor controls the flow rate of

Figure-1: Layout of solar pumping unit.

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Vol. 5(6), 15-19, June (2017) Res. J. Agriculture and Forestry Sci.

User/Farmer
Water pump

Storage tank
GSMC

Solenoid
Microcontroller valve

Moisture Sensor Irrigation Field

Figure
Figure-2: Layout of Smart irrigation unit.

Figure
Figure-3: Flow diagram of the proposed system.

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Components Microcontroller: Microcontroller is the heart of this system.

Every sensor has to send signal to the microcontroller. Then the
Solar photovoltaic panel: Solar panel is an assembly of microcontroller has to take decision according to the situation.
photovoltaic (PV) cells electrically connected and mounted on a ARM-LPC2148 is commonly used IC from ARM -7 family. It
supporting structure. Photovoltaic (PV) cells are made of is pre loaded with many programmes and manufactured by
uncommon materials called semiconductors for example silicon. Phillips. It is useful option for beginners and as well as high end
Fundamentally, when light strikes the cell, a certain portion of it application developer.
is absorbed within the semiconductor material. The electricity
generated by the semiconductor is called direct current (DC) Advantages of the system: i. Reduce the wastage of water and
and can be used immediately or stored in a battery. also control the flow of water by continuously monitoring the
status of soil. ii. Conservation of water and labor: Since the
Battery: Electrical batteries are blend of one or more systems are automatic, they do not require continuous
electrochemical cells, used to transfer chemical energy into monitoring by labor. iii. This system eliminate excess irrigation,
electrical energy. In this proposed system, batteries are used for under irrigation, top soil erosion and reduce the wastage of
storage of electricity produced by solar panels. The stored water. iv. The main benefit of this system is that it can be
energy further used for operation of the irrigation system. customize according to the situation (crops, weather conditions,
soil etc.). v. This system will be implemented in agricultural,
GSMC (Global System for Mobile Communication): The horticultural lands, parks, gardens, golf courses for irrigation. vi.
GSMC is used for sending a SMS about pump status to farmer / This system uses natural source of energy and also it is pollution
user. Global system for mobile communication (GSMC) is a free.
globally accepted standard for digital cellular communication. A
GSM modem can be an external modem device. Insert a GSMC Conclusion
SIM card into this modem, and connect the modem to an This innovative smart irrigation system (SIS) is very beneficial
available serial port. for government as well as farmers. This is one of the best
solution for energy crisis and water consumption. The smart
Soil moisture sensor: Soil moisture sensor is used to measure irrigation system reduces the human intervention during the
the soil moisture in proposed system. A low cost soil moisture irrigation of field and also optimizes the water usages. Once the
sensor5 is installed under the ground at particular depth. The system is installed, unutilized energy produced by the solar PV
moisture sensor just senses the moisture of the soil. The change can also be linked with grid system which can be revenue
in moisture will be observed by amount of current flowing source for farmers. Hence, SIS is motivating farming in India
through soil. These sensors required very low power and having and at the same time it is giving solution for the energy crisis.
high resolution. This gives the capacity to make numerous Despite the fact that it required high initial investment for
estimations (i.e. hourly) over a drawn out stretch of time with implementation of SIS but in the long run this system is more
insignificant battery utilization. economical than the conventional irrigation method.
Government should also demonstrate this type of innovative
Relay: It is electromagnetic switch use to control the electrical system to motivate the farmers for adopting such type of
devices. In our proposed system, two relays are used for system.
switching. One relay is used for switching between
microcontroller and GSM and another relay is used for
switching between microcontroller and RF. Relay is acts as
References
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