INTELLIGENT
IRRIGATION
TEAM MEMBERS
1. Sumanth.S.Naik email:sum_naik@rediff.com
2. Prasad Patil email:prasad3p@gmail.com
COLLEGE: Gogte Institute of Technology, Belgaum, Karnataka
Abstract
‘Water’ is very
important aspect in agriculture.
The farmer doesn’t efficiently
supply water to plants and is
unaware of the art of managing
the available water resources.
This in turn results in less
production and wastage of
water. Therefore in order to
tackle this problem we propose
this idea of ‘Intelligent
Irrigation’. The paper presents
the details of implementation
and important results. The
highlight of the paper is the
details regarding the soil
moisture sensor which we have
constructed by our own and the
control system which we
constructed using a single op-
amp configured to act as
comparator unlike the
traditional microcontroller
based systems. The cost of the
total system is very less and the
size too. We finally discuss
some changes based on the
results. We believe that this
system will upsurge the
agriculture production by
managing water resources
ph: 9964358098
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efficiently and satisfying the
water requirements of plants.
1.0 Introduction
‘Water ‘is an important element
to everyone. But for the farmers this
‘H2O’ is more important than to
anyone .The reason being his profession
of raising crops is heavily water
dependent.
But unfortunately our farmer is
not a good manager. I mean he cannot
efficiently manage the water resources
available to him. Whenever the plants
are saturated with water the farmer is in
a mood of giving more water and
whenever the plants are thirsty the
farmer doesn’t cater to the needs of
plants. Not that he does it
intentionally .But he is not so intelligent
to determine how much water the plant
needs and water them. And it’s very
significant that an optimum moisture
level must be maintained for efficient
growth of plants.
Although there are methods
which have been advised for efficient
irrigation. They have their own
limitations and problems. Most of them
are based on rain sensors. Just using rain
sensors won’t give a complete picture of
the amount of water that has to be
irrigated because it involves other
factors too. The present techniques use
what is called ‘Irrigation Scheduling’
where in the timer is programmed to
water the plants for a fixed time. Using
this method there is always a possibility
of oversupplying or undersupplying
water; since there is no feedback.
So as a solution to these
problems we propose the idea of
‘Intelligent Irrigation’; which is based on
soil moisture sensor. Here we employ
closed loop feedback.
2.0 What is ‘Intelligent
Irrigation’?
Intelligent Irrigation’ system
senses the moisture level in soil using
‘soil moisture sensor’ and waters the
required amount of water to plants; that
maintains the required amount of
moisture level in the root zones. The soil
moisture sensor and control system are
explained in following sections.
3.0 Design of soil
moisture sensor
The first thing which we did in
our project was to find a suitable soil
moisture sensor for our project. But we
found out that the soil moisture sensor
was not easily available and whatever
was available was very costly with a
starting cost of Rs 5000.[9].So we
decided to construct our own soil
moisture sensor; precisely speaking the
Gypsum block soil moisture sensor.
Although there are many sensors
based on different principles we chose
gypsum block sensor because of its
comparative low cost and it seemed to us
that we could easily fabricate it. Even
though gypsum block soil moisture
sensor is less accurate it served our
purpose.
3.1 Principle of Gypsum
block soil moisture sensor.
The gypsum block sensor
basically consists of a gypsum block
with two electrodes. The Gypsum block
sensor when placed in soil absorbs water
till the matric potential of water and that
of gypsum block are equal. The
resistance between the leads varies in
accordance with absorbed water. This
resistance can be converted to
proportional voltage using a bridge
network.[1][10][11][12]
3.2 Construction of the
Gypsum block soil moisture
sensor
The soil moisture sensor was
fabricated using Plaster of Paris which
we brought from a local Ganapati idol
maker .We put the Plaster of Paris in a
suitable mould and inserted two copper
wires and that’s it; our soil moisture
sensor was ready.
The resistance of gypsum block
sensor varies with moisture. In order to
convert the change in resistance to
proportional change in voltage we
employed the following bridge circuit as
shown in fig 1.
R1
V1
5V
R2
220kohm
R4
220kohm 220kohm Output
sensor
Fig 1.Soil moisture sensor complete
module

The change in voltage with
respect to change in resistance is
obtained at the output.
3.3 Testing the sensor
The sensor test readings were
taken as follows.
We chose a small pot and
inserted the soil moisture sensor .The
corresponding reading was taken. Then
the output was measured by adding
250ml of water. Another 250ml of water
was added and the reading was taken
and the process continued till the total
water poured was 1ltr of water.
Here we found that readings
were a bit fluctuating. After some
research we found that the fluctuation
was due to interionic movement in the
soil. This fluctuation can be reduced
using Ac voltage because in this case the
net interionic movement over a complete
ac cycle is zero.
But we stuck with using Dc
voltage since the fluctuations were not
large and were negligible.
One sample of the observed readings is
presented here in table 1.
Condition Output voltage
When sensor was 2.9volts
not inserted in soil
When sensor was 3.3 volts
inserted in dry soil
With 250ml of 3.7 volts
water in the pot
With 500 ml of 4.2 volts
water in the pot
With 750ml of 4.5 volts
water in the pot
With 1000ml of 4.7 volts
water in mater
Table 1.Showing sensor readings for
different moisture levels.
4.0 Design of control
circuit
4.1 Microcontroller based
system
The microcontroller based
system is as follows.
Sensor µc
ADC
output
Additional
Control valves
circuitry
Fig 2.Microcontroller
based system
The microcontroller based
system as shown in fig 2 consists of an
analog to digital converter that converts
the analog voltages into digital voltages.
It also consists of the microcontroller
and additional circuitry to drive the
valves.
The output of the sensor is given
to analog to digital converter. The adc
output is given to the
microcontroller.The microcontroller
checks if the input voltage is greater or
less than the threshold voltage and takes
the appropriate decision.Here the
threshold voltage corresponds to the
required moisture level.
 Flow chart of microcontroller program Sensor
Comparator
output
Start

Delay Control Additional

valves circuitry

Read sensor data

Fig 3.op amp based control system

lesser Check Greater The op amp based system as

moisture
On the Take no
valve action
Since the response of gypsum block
sensor is not instantaneous some delay is
requires to achieve equilibrium.
4.2 Op-Amp based control
system
In our due course of experiments
we found that we could replace
microcontroller with an op-amp
configured to act as comparator.
shown in fig 3 consists of comparator,
and some additional circuitry to drive the
solenoid valves.
The sensor output is given to the
operational amplifier .The operational
amplifier is configured, to act as
comparator. Here we have used IC 741
op amp .One of the op-amp input
terminal is at fixed reference voltage.
The reference voltage is an indication of
threshold moisture level. The sensor
output is given to other input terminal.
Depending on whether the sensor output
is greater or less than reference voltage
the control valve is switched on or off.
5.0 Application of
intelligent irrigation
system to the field
After studying the range of
moisture distribution, we now propose
the framework as how it can be applied
to the field .Considering a one acre land
we can divide the field into small
sections and sensors can be applied to
each section in order to achieve better
results.

6.0 Results
It was observed that the op amp
based control system worked in the same
manner as that of the general
microcontroller based circuitry .In turn
this added to our advantage. In the op
amp based system the additional
circuitry required to operate solenoid
valves was reduced as compared to that
in the microcontroller based system.
Another observation was that the
output of sensor was not instantaneous
and that it required some time to switch
the output I accordance with varying
miosture.
7.0 Capacitive sensor
As stated in our observations we
found that the response of gypsum
sensor is not instantaneous.This problem
can be solved by using capacitve soil
moisture sensor.A brief explaination of
capacitve soil moisture sensor is as
follows.
Soil moisture content may be
determined via its effect on dielectric
constant by measuring the capacitance
between two electrodes implanted in the
soil.Where soil moisture is
predominantly in the form of free water
the dielectric constant is directly
proportional to the moisture content.The
probe is normally given a frequency
exitation to permit the measurement of
dielectric constant.The major advantage
of capacitive sensor is its instantaneous
response.[1][11][12]
8.0 Conclusion
The system successfully controls
moisture level. The intended control
system was using microcontroller. But
since the task was just simple control of
valves we achieved it using comparator
which makes it cheap. But if we want to
go with additional interfaces then
microcontroller based system would be a
better option. Here we employ closed
loop feedback that ensures accuracy. But
if we want more accuracy then we can
use ac voltage to excite the bridge
network and obtain the proportional
voltage in accordance with the moisture
levels. In case instantaneous response is
desired we can use the capacitive sensor,
but the cost increases a bit.
So we can say that ‘Intelligent
irrigation’ ensures that the plants are not
left hungry, and water is judiciously
used thus preventing wastage. This will
result in increase yield, and better
standard of living for the farmers. So
with farmers becoming rich their wives
will have more money to spend and thus
they will keep the farmers at peace. And
finally this will make our farmers
happy .A happy farmer in turn ensures a
happy and prosperous nation because as
we all know ‘Farmers are the backbone
of the nation’.
9.0 References
1. Alberto Pardossi, Luca Incrocci,
” Root Zone Sensors for
Irrigation Management in
Intensive Agriculture”, ISSN
1424-8220
2. Bernard Cardenas-Lailhacar,
Michael D. Dukes, “Turfgrass
Irrigation Controlled by Soil
Moisture Sensor Systems”,
Proceedings of the 28th Annual
International Irrigation Show,
San Diego, CA., December 9-11,
2007.
3. P.I.: Dr. J. Heinrich Lieth, “
Tensiometer based irrigation of
cut flowers”, 1994 Project Report
 to the California Cut-flower
Commission
4. Fedro S. Zazueta and Jiannong
Xin, “Soil Moisture Sensors1”
Bulletin 292, Florida Cooperative
Extension Service, Institute of
Food and Agricultural Sciences,
april 1994
5. Rafael Muñoz-Carpena, Michael
D. Dukes,” Automatic Irrigation
Based on Soil Moisture for
Vegetable Crops”
6. Jacob.J.michael,Application and
design with analog integrated
circuits,reston VA:reston
publishing co…Inc..1982.
7. Ahmed i.Al-amoud and fawzi
S.mohammad,”Scheduling
irrigation usin an automatic
weather station.”,Depatrment of
agriculture,king saud university.
8. Jim quilici,”wireless moisture
probe”,EDN design contest,2009
9. hydraprobe,http://www.stevensw
ater.com
10. www.cheapvegetablegardner.com
11. www.decagon.com
12. www.plantsense.com