SMART IRRIGATION USING LOW-COST MOISTURE SENSOR AND CORTEX

ARM M3

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Agriculture remains an important sector of Malaysia's economy, contributing 12 percent to

the national GDP and providing employment for 16 percent of the population. The British
established large-scale plantations and introduced new commercial crops (rubber in 1876,
palm oil in 1917, and cocoa in the 1950s). The 3 main crops, rubber, palm oil, and cocoa have
dominated agricultural exports ever since, although the Malaysian share of the world's
production of these crops declined steadily during the last 2 decades. In addition to these
products, Malaysian farmers produce a number of fruits and vegetables for the domestic
market, including bananas, coconuts, durian, pineapples, rice, rambutan (a red, oval fruit
grown on a tree of the same name in Southeast Asia), and others. The Malaysian tropical
climate is very favorable for the production of various exotic fruits and vegetables especially
since Peninsular Malaysia seldom experiences hurricanes or droughts.

But climate changes and lack of precision agriculture have resulted in poor yield as
compared to population growth. Irrigation is mostly done using canal systems in which water
is pumped into fields after regular interval of time without any feedback of water level in
field. This type of irrigation affects crop health and produces a poor yield because some crops
are too sensitive to water content in soil. A similar situation exists in many other countries of
South Asia. Many smart irrigation systems have been devised. A smart irrigation system,
contrary to a traditional irrigation method, regulates supplied water according to the needs of
the fields and crops. The feedback mechanism of a smart irrigation system is a moisture
sensor. Evapotranspiration (ET), thermal imaging, capacitive methods, and neutron scattering
method and gypsum blocks are some of the technologies that enable moisture sensing.
Capacitive sensors, however instantaneous, are costly and need to be calibrated often with
varying temperature and soil type.

Therefore an automated irrigation unit, in conjunction with a low-cost moisture

sensor, is proposed in this paper. A system level description is provided, detailing the
hardware and software design. The working principle of the sensor introduces the ARM
technology.

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1.1 Problem Statement

In the present era one of the greatest problems faced by the world is water scarcity and
agriculture being a demanding Occupation consumes plenty of water. Therefore a system is
required that uses water judiciously. Focus of this paper is to overcome this problem by using
smart irrigation system. Smart irrigation systems estimate and measure diminution of existing
plant moisture in order to operate an irrigation system, restoring water as needed while
minimizing excess water use.

1.2 Objectives

The objectives of this project are:

i. To develop a smart irrigation system in order to get a significant saving in the

consumption of water to irrigate the crops.

ii. To design the automatic irrigation system by using the ARM M3 as the main
microcontroller.

iii. To conduct fundamental and applied research in water management.

2.0 PROJECT SCOPE

This project is carried out by executing the steps stated in the flowchart and the proposed
device which is using the ARM M3 microcontroller .

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2.1 Moisture Sensors

Moisture sensor is a device that measures the relative moisture of any environment. There are
various types of moisture sensors but most common are the impedance based ones.
Impedance based sensors works on the change of impedance between two electrodes due to
varying moisture content in the surrounding medium. Hence, when the electrodes are kept in
soil, its moisture level changes can measured in a relative manner. This is the fundamental by
which the proposed sensor works.

Figure 1: Soil moisture sensor

2.2 mbed Application Shield

The GPS module works fine when plugged into the MBED Application Board. The only
change required was to re-define the serial connections in the apps_gps program. In
particular, in main.cpp static MTK3339 gps(p9,p10); The next challenge will be to display
the GPS data on the LCD screen.

Figure 2: Application board for mbed NXP LPC1768

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2.3 ARM Cortex M3

The Inventek Systems 802.11 b/g/n Serial to WiFi module makes it easy to add Wi-Fi to your
embedded design. It can be programmed from a host with a choice of serial interfaces using
a simple AT command set.

These serial interfaces are provided by an STM32 ARM Cortex M3 processor as shown on
the block diagram. No software development is required for the STM32, the AT command
set interface is resident in firmware. This means your host microcontroller does not need a
TCP/IP stack or RTOS. This simplifies software development for your application - you only
need to write serial I/O code to send the AT commands and process data.

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2.4 Block diagram

Transceiver Section

LPC 1768

Wi-Fi to PC

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2.5 Flowchart

This is the illustration for the automatic plant watering system sense the moisture
content of the soil and automatically switch the pump when the power is on. A proper usage
of the automatic plant watering system is important because the main reason is shortage of
land reserved water due to lack of rain, unplanned use of water as a result large amount of
water goes waste.

SEND SIGNAL
TO PC

Get Readings

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4.0 EXPECTED RESULT

A system to monitor moisture levels in the soil was designed. The system was used to
switch on/off the watering system according to the soil moisture levels. The control unit the
prototype was implement using a microcontroller. To switch between the control and the
irrigation system a relay switching circuit was used. In order this project also helps prevent
weeds and disease in plant. With some of the more targeted sprinkler irrigation system
options we can have water delivered to the roots of the plants that we want to grow and be
strong. The helps to stop the weed seeds from germinating. Also, by limiting the water that
is sprayed onto the leaves we can reduce the chance of any blight or leaf diseases. Other than
that we also can maintain soil nutrient balance. Over watering the yard can cause the soil to
lose some of the nutrients that all plants need. With an automated or controlled distribution
of water through a sprinkler irrigation system we do not need to worry about this as the
amount of water that is distributed is carefully controlled and maintained. Another problem
with overwatering is that soil can become too heavy and compacted. This is not good at all
for plants and should be avoided at all costs. With one of the many sprinkler system
installation options we can prevent this from happening.

5.1 CONCLUSION

The proposed model using ARM CORTEX M3, which is fully based on smart
irrigation using low-cost moisture sensor Module. This project developed agriculture field,
increase the growth of food production, and provides excellent water management. This can
also useful for increasing the economy and demand of food necessity.

REFERENCES

[1] https://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Asia-and-the-Pacific/Malaysia-
AGRICULTURE.html#ixzz5iLShRWpq

[2] F.S. Zazueta, J.Xin, “Soil Moisture Sensors” in Bulletin 292, Gainsville, FL, USA:
University of Florida, 2004.