Design and implementation of a smart irrigation system for improved water-energy efficiency

摘要

Although water, in some parts of the world is as abundant as the air that we breathe, it is still a precious resource in dry regions. Such regions must use it carefully and efficiently because of its scarcity. However, the irrigation systems are still wasteful as they unnecessarily flood the farms. This results into wastage of water and energy that is used for pumping the water. With the improvement of the technological infrastructure, effective management of water usage and power consumption of irrigation systems can be achieved. This can be done by enabling the irrigation system to identify specific areas to irrigate. This paper presents a smart irrigation system that uses environmental information to determine when and where irrigation is required. The system is comprised of microcontroller, sensors and integration of water pumps with the decision making system. A truth table is developed to help the system determine the necessity to irrigate based on the collected environment information. The sensors narrow down the location that requires irrigation and the decision-making system activates sprinklers. In this fashion, water is given to dry locations of the field, already damp locations are not irrigated and this results efficient water use. Different parameters used, i.e. temperature, humidity and moisture, makes it possible to adjust the system according to the needs of a particular location.