2009 IEEE Symposium on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ISIEA 2009), October 4-6, 2009, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Application and Evaluation of High Power
Zigbee Based Wireless Sensor Network in Water
Irrigation Control Monitoring System
Zulhani Rasin
Faculty of Electrical Engineering
Universiti Teknikal Malaysia
Melaka (UTeM)
Melaka, Malaysia
Email: zulhani@utem.edu.my
Abstract— The application of wireless sensor network
(WSN) for a water irrigation control monitoring is
composed of a number of sensor nodes with a networking
capability that can be deployed for an ad hoc and
continuous monitoring purpose. The parameters involved in
the water reservation control such as the water level and
motor movement of the gate controlling the flow of water
will be measured in the real time by the sensors that send
the data to the base station or control/monitoring room.
This paper proposes how such monitoring system can be
setup emphasizing on the aspects of low cost, easy ad hoc
installation and easy handling and maintenance. The use of
wireless system for monitoring purpose will not only reduce
the overall monitoring system cost in term of labor cost, but
will also provide a flexibility in term of distance or location.
In this paper, the fundamental design and implementation
of WSN featuring a Zigbee Technology together with the
IEEE 802.15.4 compatible transceiver and the simple water
flow control circuit is proposed. The developed platform is
cost-effective and allows easy customization. Several
preliminary results of measurement to evaluate the
reliability and effectiveness of the system are also presented.
Keywords— wireless sensor network, water irrigation
control, monitoring, Zigbee technology
I. INTRODUCTION
Water reservation control is a crucial facility
especially in the irrigation system for agricultural
activities. It is important to make sure the amount of
water in the reservoir is always at its appropriate level
and able to be flowed to irrigation system when it reaches
the maximum level to prevent water from flooding the
surrounding area. When the reservoir is at its low level, a
flow of water from other sources must be allowed to
maintain appropriate level of reservation.
In Malaysia, the gate controlling the water irrigation
can be categorized into two types; one that manually
operated using man force and another one that uses and
electrical motor to move the gate. In most cases, a person
is in charged of checking the level in a predetermined
interval of time and to take an appropriate action of
opening and closing the gate controlling the water flow.
This will expose the system to a failure caused by a
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Hizzi Hamzah Mohd Shahrieel Mohd Aras
Faculty of Electrical Engineering Faculty of Electrical Engineering
Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Universiti Teknikal Malaysia
Melaka (UTeM) Melaka (UTeM)
Melaka, Malaysia Melaka, Malaysia
Email: zizah_iz21@yahoo.com Email :shahrieel@utem.edu.my
human error due to inability to receive accurate and fast
information, or wrongly forecasting the condition at the
control site, especially in a condition where the water
level might increase or decrease unexpectedly due to
weather condition, for example during a heavy rain.
There are several works on the application of WSN
for irrigation system such as in [1], where a distributed
wireless sensor network was used in a variable-rate water
irrigation to maximize the productivity and water saving.
In [2], an application of wireless sensor network
specifically in a water distribution monitoring network
was discussed in term of channel measurement approach
to determine an appropriate path-loss model.
This paper describes the use of high transmission
power with a relatively low power consumption Zigbee
based WSN for water irrigation control monitoring
system. A multiple of sensors are used to detect the level
of water in the reservoir area and based on the signal
from the sensors, a simple electronic circuit will either
open or close the gate controlling the water flow. It is
important to be mentioned here, the circuit presented in
this paper is on a conceptual scale and not yet in the form
that can be directly applied to the available water
irrigation controlling gate. The water level condition and
the gate movement data is wirelessly sent by the wireless
sensor network based on the Zigbee Technology to the
main monitoring base station and all these activities are
monitored through the developed graphical user interface
(GUI) at the monitoring base station. The base station
capability can be extended to not only monitor the
condition of one facility but several more same facilities
covering a large area.
Zigbee is a communication standard for use in the
wireless sensor network defined by the Zigbee Alliance
[3] that adopting the IEEE 802.15.4 standard for its
reliable communication. It is chosen due to its features
that fulfill the requirement for a low cost, easy to use,
minimal power consumption and reliable data
communication between sensor nodes.
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 2009 IEEE Symposium on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ISIEA 2009), October 4-6, 2009, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
II. HARDWARE DESIGN
A. Water Level Sensor and Motor Controlling Circuit
A sensor used to detect the water level in the reservoir
is composed of a float that moves up and down with the
water level and at the same time changing the resistance
value of a potentiometer connected to the ADC input of
the Zigbee module as shown in the following Fig.1. The
current supplied through the potentiometer with changing
resistance will produce a voltage that is proportional to
level of water in the reservoir. Calibration is done before
the installation to ensure the voltage produce represents
the right level of water.
Fig. 1 Circuit for water level detection and gate controlling
The following Fig. 2 shows how the voltage produced
from the potentiometer is connected to the
microcontroller. The microcontroller will produce an
output to the the H bridge IC L293B that controls the
movement of the motor that open and close the gate. The
output from the microcontroller is based on the
predetermined minimum and maximum voltage at its
input.
Fig. 2 Circuit for water level detection and gate controlling
B. Wireless Sensor Nodes
The wireless sensor nodes used are based on the
Zigbee compliance product from Cirronet. The high
power transmission type ZMN2405HP Zigbee module is
using the CC2430 transceiver IC from Texas Instrument
comply to the IEEE 802.15.4 standards with a maximum
transmission power of 100 mW using the dipole antenna
and 250 mW using the directional patch antenna. The
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transceiver IC is integrated with the 8051 microcontroller,
low power but high performance, 64 kByte
programmable flash microcontroller. The module alone
requires a 5VDC power supply, multiple sensor
inputs/outputs with ADC, operating at a frequency of 2.4
GHz with a configurable sleep mode to get the best of
power consumption as low as 3uA. The main
microcontroller in the module is reprogrammable whether
to function as an end device as in Fig. 1, router or
coordinator nodes [4].
Fig. 3 Block diagram of Zigbee based wireless sensor node
For the actual implementation, a 9V battery supply is
used and directly connected to a 5V voltage regulator
before goes to the Zigbee module configured as an end
device.
C. Base Station
The base station consists of a same Zigbee module
programmed as a coordinator that receives the data sent
from the sensor nodes (end device) wirelessly. As the
coordinator needs to continuously receiving data from the
end device, it is normally mains powered. Data received
from the end device nodes is sent to the computer using
the RS 232 protocol and data received is displayed using
the built GUI. The user friendly GUI is programmed
using the Visual Basic 6.0 and able to receive packet
information in real time.
Fig. 4 Block diagram of components in base station
D. Receiver Energy Detection (ED)
The transceiver IC CC2430 from TI in the
ZMN2405HP Zigbee module has a built-in RSSI
(Received Signal Strength Indicator), based on the
receiver energy detection (ED) measurement. ED
measurement is intended for use by a network layer as
part of a channel selection algorithm. It is an estimate of
the received signal power within the bandwidth of the
channel. The ED measurement time, to average over, is
equal to 8 symbol period.
The minimum ED value indicates a received power
less than 10 dB above the specified receiver sensitivity,
and the range of the received power spanned by the ED is
at least 40 dB. Within this range, the mapping from the
received power in decibels to the ED values is linear with
an accuracy of ± 6 dB [5].
 2009 IEEE Symposium on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ISIEA 2009), October 4-6, 2009, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
E. Link Quality Indicator (LQI)
The LQI measurement is a characterization of the
strength and/or quality of a received packet. The
measurement can be implemented using the receiver ED,
a signal-to-noise ratio estimation, or a combination of
these methods.
The LQI measurement is performed for each received
packet, and the result is reported to the MAC layer as an
integer ranging from 0x00 to 0xff (0 to 255). The
minimum and maximum LQI values is associated with
the lowest and highest quality compliant signal detectable
by the receiver, and the LQI values in between should be
uniformly distributed between these two limits [5].
III. SOFTWARE DESIGN
The GUI platform was successfully developed using
Visual Basic 6.0 programming that able to interact with
the hardware (coordinator) at the base station. The
following Fig. 4 shows the GUI designed for this project.
Among the parameters displayed are the water level in
the reservoir and the irrigation channel, gate’s close/open
condition and the remark showing the exact time and date
of any changes happened.
Fig. 5 GUI developed for monitoring purpose
IV. MEASUREMENT
Several measurements are carried out to evaluate the
performance and effectiveness of the Zigbee based WSN
on the irrigation control system to confirm the reliability
and feasibility of using it for the actual monitoring
purpose.
A. Power Consumption
Low power consumption is an important criterion in
the WSN deployment to make sure it is able to operate in
long time with minimum maintenance. The power
consumption measurement is only carried for the end
device as the coordinator is practically mains powered at
the base station.
During the measurement, the end device is configured
to be in a timer sleep mode condition. The node is
configured to wake up at every 30 minutes interval for
100ms just to send the data to the base station. For the
rest of the time, the end device is in a sleep condition.
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B. Coverage Performance
Coverage is another important aspect of WSN as it
shows how large area of monitoring can be covered and
to guarantee the delivery of data from the sensor nodes to
the base station at reliable signal strength.
Measurement is carried out in a flat outdoor open field
with no obstacles assumed close to actual application.
Base station is located at the center of the area and sensor
nodes is placed at certain interval of distance at different
angle covering 0º to 360º. The average signal strength is
based on the value of the LQI received at the base
station for 20 cycles. All the sensor nodes and
coordinator at the base station is using a 2 dB gain
omnidirectional dipole antenna with transmitted power of
100 mW.
Fig. 6 Coverage measurement method
V. MEASUREMENT
A. Power Consumption
The following Table I shows the average power
consumption for the end device, measured for both
during active and sleep mode condition.
TABLE I
END DEVICE POWER CONSUMPTION
It is important to be mentioned here that the above
measured average power consumption is not considering
the power consumed by the module only, but also
includes the voltage regulation component and its
peripheral circuits consists of basic components such as
resistor and capacitor.
Based on the above result, the lifetime of the battery
can be calculated as follow.
Power consumption during active mode :
= 35.5 mA x 100ms / (60 x 60 x 1000)
= 0.00099 mAH
 2009 IEEE Symposium on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ISIEA 2009), October 4-6, 2009, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Power consumption during sleep mode :
= 28.8 mA x 30 minutes/60
= 14.4 mAH
Total power comsumption = 14.4 + 0.00099 ≈ 14.4
mAH
Battery capacity = 170 mAH
Expexted battery lifetime = 170/14.4 = 11.81 hours
B. Coverage Performance
The following Fig. 7 shows the coverage performance
based on the LQI value. Between 10 to 50m distance
from the base station, an average uniform signal strength
is obtained comply with the use of omni directional
antenna. In order to further evaluate the maximum
distance that can be reached, one direction is chosen and
the distance of end device from the base station is
extended. As shown in Fig. 8, reliable signal strength can
still be obtained at 100% success of packet delivery up to
the distance of 210 m. The decrease of the LQI value
with the distance extension is expected. Unfortunately the
maximum reachable distance cannot be determined as the
distance can not be further extended due to the
geographical constraint. The use of router between the
end device nodes and the coordinator is expected to
further increase the coverage distance.
Link Quality Indicator based on Distance and
Direction from Coordinator
250
200
150
LQI
described in this paper, the prototype hardware (sensor
and control circuitry); and the software (GUI) for the
monitoring application is successfully developed.
Based on the measurement result, the end device
node able to operate for 12 hours without the need of
installing a new battery. It means that it can be used in an
ad hoc style for short period of time. The obtained result
however, can be improved if circuitry for the module
power supply is carefully considered to use a component
with very low power consumption plus a smart power
management that can reduce the voltage supply necessary
for the module during the sleep mode. The programming
of tasks carried out in the module can also be customized
to further reduce the current consumption.
On the coverage performance, with the use of high
power transmission, minimal number of sensor nodes for
maximum area coverage can be expected. However, other
measurement at several more different environments is
necessary to obtain a more reliable data that also
considering the worst case scenario.
Overall, the proposed implementation of high power
Zigbee based WSN for water irrigation control
monitoring system offer a low power consumption with
high reliability based on the preliminary result is
presented. The use of high power WSN is suitable for
activity in industries involving large area monitoring
such as manufacturing, constructing, mining etc. Another
important fact of this system is the easy installation of the
system where the base station can be place at the local
residence close to the target area and the monitoring task
can be done by any person with minimal training at the
beginning of the system installation.
0 degree
90 degrees
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VI. CONCLUSION
A reliable monitoring system for water irrigation
control facility is crucial as a failure caused by a sole
dependent on human may effect over large area. As

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