WESTERN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Luna Street, La Paz, Iloilo City

AUTOMATIC WATER SPRINKLER WITH HEAT SENSOR

by
Reygem Abanid Bryan Jagolino
Mark Anthony Alibadbarin Daniel Mahusay
Carl Louis Babe Jack Penaso
John Paul Erfe Runee John Perez

March 2020
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AUTOMATIC WATER SPRINKLER WITH HEAT SENSOR

A Project in EE 7: Electronics 1

Presented to the Faculty of

Western Institute of Technology

Luna St., La Paz, Iloilo City

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering

by

Reygem Abanid Bryan Jagolino

Mark Anthony Alibadbarin Daniel Mahusay
Carl Louis Babe Jack Penaso
John Paul Erfe Runee John Perez

Submitted to:
Engr. Mandy Ysmael T. Sobrepeña

March 2020
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Automatic Water Sprinkler with Heat Sensor

Chapter 1

Introduction to the Study

Chapter One is divided into five parts: Background of the Study, Statement of the

Problem, Significance of the Study, Definition of Terms, and Delimitation of the Study.

Part One, Background of the Study, gives the overview or rationale of the research

problem.

Part Two, Statement of the Problem, mentions the general and specific problems.

Part Three, Significance of the Study, gives the importance of the results of the study to

different persons, organizations and institutions that directly or indirectly will benefit from it.

Part Four, Definition of Terms, discusses the terms used in the study, which are defined

conceptually and operationally.

Part Five, Scope and limitations of the Study, cites the coverage and limitations of the study.

Background of the Study

Numerous households on the planet were planned with large yards and nurseries to keep

up. Nonetheless, house proprietors can't generally screen their grass yards and gardens

particularly when they are away for excursion. As explicitly referred to by Conjecture

Corporation in 2003, house proprietors in the long run notice that their yards and nurseries have

just experienced dry spell and the plants kicked the bucket because of absence of watering and

appropriate support.
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A water sprinkler may be an outdoor watering device or a part of an indoor ceiling fire

emergency system. A sprinkler has non-rusting metal parts, or valves, and emits water through

small holes or hollow pipes. Fire sprinklers are located in the ceilings of many apartment and

commercial buildings and may also be a part of a house's emergency sprinkler system. Lawns

and gardens can be kept at their ideal moisture level when water sprinklers are used regularly.

There are many different types of sprinklers that differ in the way they distribute water.

The most basic types of lawn and garden water sprinklers are attached to a garden hose

connected to an outdoor tap. The tap may be located on an outside wall of a house or in the

ground near a home. A metal fitting connects the hose with the water sprinkler. The hose's length

should be enough to allow the sprinkler to be placed in the center of the lawn as well as in areas

within watering distance of the lawn's edges.

The history of sprinkler systems is linked to municipal water supplies. Sprinklers need

pressure to spray water onto crops and gardens. The first city water systems were in Rome,

which brought water from distant sources to central locations via aqueducts. Waterwheels in the

late 16th century supplied water to London and Paris. Both use gravity to move the water.

Though a sprinkler was invented in the first century, it took eight centuries to develop

pressurized water systems that could spray water to crops and gardens via sprinkler systems.

Hero of Alexandria invented a steam engine device called an aerophile in the first

century. It worked on the same principles as lawn sprinklers nearly two millennia later. The

difference is that they use waterpower while it used steam for propulsion. The first water-

propelled lawn sprinkler was patented in the United States in 1871 by J. Lessler of Buffalo, New
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York. Fixed-spray sprinklers were quickly followed by rotating heads, swivel-head models,

impact sprinklers, hoses and nozzles. By the 20th century, sprinkler heads threw arches of water

from heads made from aluminum tubing, plastic and rubber. Adjustable oscillating heads had a

metal arm that sprayed a curtain of water in a fan shape to an area of 600 sq. ft. (55.7 sq. meters).

Water moved an elliptical cam to rotate the sprinkler arm and a gear train slowed the speed of the

water to one mile an hour. Gardens became common at private homes and public parks in the

20th century, made possible by sprinkler systems attached to hoses linked to municipal water

systems.

In the 20th century, municipal sprinkler systems went underground. Small lawns could be

watered with an oscillating or drip sprinkler, but large ones often had the sprinkler system

plumbing buried and divided into zones. These were put on a timer system programmed to turn

on at optimal times. Sprinkler systems operated by electric or hydraulic technology can be

simple or elaborate. They may feature retractable sprinkler heads for ease in mowing and be able

to compensate for evaporation, runoff and rain. Different sprinkler heads can deliver a fixed

spray or a rotating broken stream for grass or a slow drip for more delicate flowers and shrubs.

Therefore, this study was conceptualized because the researchers aim to enhance the

existing water sprinklers with modern technology by the use of heat sensors.

Statement of the Problem

This study aims to enhance the existing water sprinklers with modern technology using

heat sensors.
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Significance of the Study

This study aims to enhance the existing water sprinklers with modern technology using

heat sensors. Moreover, this study will be beneficial to the following:

Garden Enthusiasts. This study will be beneficial to garden enthusiasts because it will

save them time and attention from focusing on their plants. The automatic sprinkler will turn on

once the heat in the area is detected to have risen.

Wide Artificial Landscapes. This study will be beneficial to these areas because it can

help maintain the moisture and beauty of the area without human interference.

Future Researchers. This study will be beneficial to future researchers because they can

further enhance this study and make better use out of sprinklers in their study.

Definition of Terms

Sprinkler--a device perforated with small holes that is attached to a garden hose or

watering can and used to spray plants, lawns, etc., with water (Collins English Dictionary –

Complete and Unabridged, 12th edition, 2014).

In this study, the same definition was applied.

Heat Sensor--a device that senses the heat present around the sensor. When temperature

rises above the set value, it will indicate the presence with the help of glowing LED (Ashutosh

Bhatt, 2018).

In this study, the same definition was applied.

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Automatic--having a self-acting or self-regulating mechanism (Merriam-Webster

Dictionary, 2020).

In this study, the same definition was applied.

Scope and Limitations of the Study

This study aims to enhance the existing water sprinklers with modern technology using

heat sensors. This study focuses only on the modification of garden sprinklers. The designed

project will be evaluated by selected evaluators who found that the device was effective and

efficient in watering the plants.

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Chapter 2

Review of Related Literature

Chapter Two presents literatures such as: Water Resources In The Philippines, Efficient

Use Of Water In The Garden And Landscape, Automatic Soil Moisture Sensing Water Irrigation

System With Water level Indicator, and Automated Water Sprinkler System With SMS

Monitoring.

Part One, Water Resources in The Philippines, discusses the abundance of water in the

country.

Part Two, Efficient Use of Water in The Garden and Landscape, presents the efficiency

of using water in the garden and other landscapes.

Part Three, Automatic Soil Moisture Sensing Water Irrigation System with Water level

Indicator, provides the project designed to sense soil moisture as part of the water irrigation

system.

Part Four, Automated Water Sprinkler System with SMS Monitoring, discusses an

automated water sprinkler system with a short message service (SMS) monitoring tool.

Water Resources in The Philippines

The Philippines has abundant water resources having endowed with 59 lakes and 421

river basins with drainage area ranging from 40 to 25,649 km2. From among the principal river

basins,18 were identified as major river basins with drainage areas of at least1,400 km2; while the

other smaller river basins have an area of at least 50 km2. Moreover, there are 1, OOO km2 of
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freshwater swamps. The country is also underlain by extensive groundwater reservoir (aquifer)

covering approximately 50, OOO km2 with an estimated storage capacity of about 251 km3.There

are four major groundwater reservoirs which comprises 67% of the total.

Groundwater supply is approximately 20 km3/year or about 14% of the total water

resources potential, of this, 80% would constitute the base flow of the river systems which forms

basic part of the surface water. The total internal water resources would, therefore, amount to 30

km3/year, On its use, 63% of groundwater extracted goes to domestic users, 17% to industries,

13% to agriculture purposes, and 7% to power generation and other uses (Concepcion, 2004).

Groundwater stepped using private wells which are extensively used in rural areas for

domestic purpose; waterworks wells drilled by the Local Water Utilities Administration

(LWUA) for domestic and commercial purposes; and deep wells drilled by companies for

industrial use; and National Irrigation Administration (NIA) for irrigation purposes (FAO, 2007).

On a study conducted by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)as cited by Kho and

Gassaway (2006), water demand in the Philippines was 49 km3 in2005 and is expected today to

literally increase up to 86 km3 in 2025.

Efficient Use of Water in The Garden and Landscape

According to Welsh and Stein (2019), the danger of exhausting valuable aquifers by

excessive pumping is paralleled by the threat of polluting the groundwater with industrial,

agricultural and home landscape contaminants. Nitrates from excessive and untimely fertilization

are especially threatening.

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When water is applied to the soil it seeps down through the root zone very gradually.

Each layer of soil must be filled to “field capacity” before water descends to the next layer. This

water movement is referred to as the wetting front. Water moves downward through a sandy

coarse soil much faster then through a fine-textured soil such as clay or silt.

If only one-half the amount of water required for healthy growth of your garden or

landscape is applied at a given time, it only penetrates the top half of the root zone; the area

below the point where the wetting front stops remains dry as if no irrigation has been applied at

all. Once enough water is applied to move the wetting front into the root zone, moisture is

absorbed by plant roots and moves up through the stem to the leaves and fruits. Leaves have

thousands of microscopic openings, called stomates, through which water vapor is lost from the

plant. This continual loss of water called transpiration, causes the plant to wilt unless a constant

supply of soil water is provided by absorption through the roots.

On the other hand, the total water requirement is the amount of water lost from the plant plus the

amount evaporated from the soil. These two processes are called evapotranspiration.

Evapotranspiration rates vary and are influenced by day length, temperature, cloud cover, wind,

relative humidity, mulching, and the type, size and number of plants growing in a given area.

Water is required for the normal physiological processes of all plants. It is the primary

medium for chemical reactions and movement of substances through the various plant parts.

Water is an essential component in photosynthesis and plant metabolism, including cell division

and enlargement. It is important also in cooling the surfaces of land plants by transpiration.
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Water is a primary yield-determining factor in crop production. Plants with insufficient

water respond by closing the stomata, leaf rolling, changing leaf orientation and reducing leaf

and stem growth and fruit yield.

Automatic Soil Moisture Sensing Water Irrigation System with Water level Indicator

According to a study conducted by Ecija et al (2015) entitled, Automatic Soil Moisture

Sensing Water Irrigation System with Water level Indicator’, the prototype design of

microcontroller based on water irrigation which detects a soil if watering is required then the

water will be maintained at the constant level. If the specific area is irrigated too much with

water, there are possibilities that the plant may die due to excessive irrigation. The proposed

system uses a microcontroller basically a platform device called ARDUINO where sensors are

connected in its internal and external ports. Whenever there is a variation in moisture content of

the soil these sensors will determine the change and will give an interrupt signal to the

microcontroller and eventually will send signal to the relay driver and thus the water pump is

now activated. This irrigation system also includes a water level indicator in the water tank

which will indicate the water capacity of the reservoir itself whether it is low level or high level.

This thesis paper will allow garden owners and other household areas or certain facilities in the

efficient, convenient and effective method of water irrigation and may direct future research on

the development of more advanced water irrigation system.

Automated Water Sprinkler System with SMS Monitoring

In the study conducted by Dilangalen, et al. (2018), experimental development and

descriptive methods were used to investigate the and prove the principles of the study. The
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researchers invented an automated water sprinkler that can monitor the user through SMS

monitor service which is composed of a Solenoid Valve to act as a water gate. The water

sprinkler aims to distribute water evenly, the GSM to inform the user of the garden status, soil

moisture sensor to detect the amount of moisture in the soil and microcontroller.

The automated water sprinkler system with SMS monitoring is a system designed to

automate the watering of plants in vegetation. This device was developed to aid the farmers in

the nourishing of plants which is deemed necessary due to the soil moisture content that must

be maintained. The features of this device are as follows: a) easy switch on/off button; b)

button for cellular phone charger; c)soil moisture sensor socket; d) solenoid valve input socket

for simple attachment; e) fuses for protection of the device; f) labeled completely for

convenience; g) detects soil moisture; h) automatic water sprinkler for water distribution; i)

SMS monitoring; j) handy; k) operates at 220v AC; l) indicator LEDs; m) detachable soil

moisture sensor; and n) interchangeable water sprinkler.

The automated water sprinkler system with SMS monitoring can detect soil moisture

content up to its maximum capacity. However, proper positioning is needed. In choosing area to

place the soil moisture sensor, the primary consideration is that soil must be intact so that the

sensor can sense properly its moisture or else the sensor will have a false reading in moisture

content. The delay of SMS was caused by the network providers and its ability to deliver the

functionality expected depended on the efficiency of network signal in a certain location. In

verifying this observation, the researchers conducted the tests using different network providers

to the cellular phone. There were lot of things that engineering application should focus on

since the projects and innovations for agricultural field are very few. The design project
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developed by researchers enables agricultural sector to adopt new things and technologies in

improving the production. This device was very convenient for the users especially during busy

days which could give themselves assurance that the plants were watered well somehow.