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Solar powered smart irrigation system based on low cost wireless network: A
senior design project experience

Article  in  International Journal of Electrical Engineering Education · July 2019

DOI: 10.1177/0020720919860414

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Original Article

International Journal of Electrical Engineering

& Education
Solar powered smart 0(0) 1–14
! The Author(s) 2019
irrigation system based Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
on low cost wireless DOI: 10.1177/0020720919860414
journals.sagepub.com/home/ije

network: A senior design

project experience

Mounir Bouzguenda, S Rajamohamed ,

M H Shwehdi and Adel Aldalbahi

Abstract
This paper presents the design and the implementation of a smart irrigation system
supplied from solar energy using off-shelf components as part of a senior design project.
Introducing smart irrigation technology enhances the effectiveness of water utilization
and will help farmers make their activities more beneficial. In addition, it is to increase
the agriculture sustainability in common and considering the characteristics of irrigation
in the rural areas. This paper brings forward new device based on wireless networks
such as solar photovoltaic technology, Arduino-based controllers, transmitters,
receivers, and sensor nodes are used to measure soil moisture, humidity, temperature,
and the sensor readings are transmitted to a remote station. Experimental results
indicated that the developed system could provide a sustainable solution to enhance
the efficiency of water use and to preserve it in the agricultural fields while using solar
photovoltaic energy as a renewable power supply.

Keywords
Smart irrigation system, solar photovoltaics, water/energy savings, senior design
project, Arduino controller, sensors

Department of Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering, King Faisal University, Hofuf, Saudi Arabia
Corresponding author:
S Rajamohamed, Department of Electrical Engingineering, College of Engineering, King Faisal University, Al-
Hasa 31982, Hofuf, Saudi Arabia.
Email: rsumsudeen@kfu.edusa
2 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

Introduction
During the next decade, a key challenge in the Gulf countries is to manage energy,
water, and food resources to ensure both high living standards and sustainable
growth in the long term. Among the GCC countries, Saudi Arabia is in a swelter-
ing environment with no rivers or lakes and an average yearly rainfall of less than
100 mm. Statistics show that the total water consumption in Saudi Arabia
increases on a yearly basis. According to the Saudi Government statistics, the
water consumption in 2016 reached almost 23.933 billion cubic meters in KSA
as shown in Figure 1, with the agricultural sector accounting for 17.8 billion cubic
meters alone. This is equivalent to 611 cubic meters per year. From 2010 through
2016, on the average, the agricultural sector accounted for almost 83.42% of the
national water consumption.1 While the industrial and municipality sectors
accounted for 4.09 and 12.50%, respectively.1 In the United States and Canada,
irrigation needs are as high as 4878 and 2869 m3/ha as given in Table 1. However,
in Saudi Arabia, the needs are about 300% more than that of US and 500% than
that of Canada, respectively. The average Saudi water consumption was
15,532 m3/ha.2
Due to the high consumption of the agricultural irrigation water on the national
level, developing automatic smart irrigation systems would reduce water use in agri-
culture and prevent water shortage in the kingdom in the future. Currently 35% of
Saudi farmland is irrigated using traditional methods like surface or flood irrigation.
Using smart irrigation technology in these farms can create significant water savings.
Introducing smart irrigation system with renewable energy supply improves the
efficiency of water usage and helps farmers to make their activities more profitable,
but also increases the sustainability of agriculture in general. The photovoltaic water

Annual Water Consmption (Million m3)

30,000
Municipaliy Industrial Agriculture Total Consmption
24,833
25,000 23,416 23,933
22,260
20,884 20,831
19,612 19,789
20,000 19,193
18,639
17,447 17,514
15,970
14,410
15,000

10,000

5,000

0
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Year

Figure 1. Water consumption by sector in KSA 2010–2016.1

Bouzguenda et al. 3

Table 1. Irrigation needs in KSA, US, and Canada in 2013.

Irrigation land Irrigation water Average water

(million ha) (million m3) need (m3/ha) Ratio

United States (2013) 22.380 109,162.980 4877.789 3.184

Canada (2012) 0.590 1692.596 2868.746 5.414
KSA (2013) 1.200 18,639.000 15,532.500 1.000

pumping (PVWP) technologies were studied in Rwanda. The main objective of this
paper was to illustrate the design and optimize cost-effective PVWP considering
three alternatives with tank storage, battery storage, and a system without storages
medium to grow coffee and cassava with 5 ha each. Results showed that using
PVWP directly connected to irrigation system is the most profitable way when
compared to the rest of the two alternatives. Finally, full replacement of diesel
water pumps results in annual reduction of CO2 emissions by 6.6 t.3 An automatic
photovoltaic irrigation system was designed at the Turkish District of Tokat prov-
ince with two BLDC motors. These motors are chosen because of their high oper-
ating efficiency, brushless construction, low maintenance, and operation cost. In this
application, the irrigation system was used to irrigate 1000 dwarf cherry trees and it
consisted of two BLDC motors, 48 PV arrays, a 100 t water storage tank, eight
batteries, and DC/DC converter. The automation system involved radio frequency
modules, soil moisture sensors, and solenoid valves.4 Fuzzy logic-based irrigation
management system used. A microcontroller-based system collects soil moisture,
ambient temperature, and solar radiation. Then the fuzzy logic controller takes
these inputs and based on the created rules table for a given crop, it proposes an
irrigation schedule in which the time and duration are specified. A decision support
system based on the combination of the wireless sensor and actuation network
technology and the fuzzy logic theory is proposed to support the irrigation manage-
ment in agriculture.5,6 The uses of modern irrigation technologies have become vital
in the context of water demand in kingdom of Saudi Arabia agriculture sector. In
fact, the conventional manual irrigation system of more than 24,000 farms was
automated and interlinked with a global SCADA system. The purpose of the
SCADA system is to use the scarce water resources more efficiently and to utilize
technology to support the agricultural development.7 The smart irrigation system
comprised of microcontroller, sensors, and integration of water pumps with the
decision-making system developed for saving the water use in agricultural forms.
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 in efficient
water use.8
The authors designed a model of automatic irrigation system based on a micro-
controller and solar power for power supply. They used several sensors such as
temperature sensor, humidity sensor, motion sensor, light sensor, vibrating sensor,
4 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

and UV sensor.9 A comparative study of wireless protocols depending on its

features is presented. All the four protocols are standard for short-range wireless
communications. The most attractive feature in the study is the fact ZigBee was
designed for reliable wireless networked monitoring and control networks—a
design necessity for the irrigation system. The paper contains information about
the ZigBee features and performance.10 Similarly in Hillman,11 ZigBee networks
were described in detail, namely the configuration and operation of the ZigBee
network. The idea of creating a wireless network using ZigBee was also proposed
in several research projects. For instance, in Kumbhar,12 the wireless sensor net-
work was designed using Arduino Uno and interfaced with XBee connected to the
temperature sensors at different locations. It is worth mentioning that ZigBee and
XBee are quite different. For one, ZigBee is a standard communications protocol
for low-power, low-throughput, low cost wireless mesh networking applications,
while the XBee is a brand of radio that supports a variety of communication
protocols, including ZigBee.
Based on the aforementioned review, the authors assisted and guided the stu-
dents to design and develop a smart automatic irrigation system prototype using
the low cost and efficient Arduino Uno transmitter and receiver for communica-
tion for collecting the data of the different sensors. This is a two-semester senior
design project involving four undergraduate electrical engineering students. In
their first semester (Senior Design I) of the senior design project, electrical engi-
neering students get a wide-ranging background needed to complete the project.
By the beginning of the second semester (Senior Design II), students would have
procured all components and would start building the system, troubleshoot it, and
debug the various software codes.
Senior design projects represent the result of the academic expertise, coordinat-
ing the classroom teaching with real world issues. The students handle unrestricted
engineering problems whose solutions need a synthesis of engineering information,
analysis, creativity, market needs, and safety. All the senior design projects are
carried out by students and must be supervised by instructors and industry advi-
sors. The senior design project proposal template, ABET outcome assessment
guidelines, and outcomes assessment results are given in Appendix 1, 2 and 3.13,14

System overview
The smart irrigation system consists of four major components. These are the
power supply, the controller, the communication network, and the pumping
system, as shown in Figure 2. The power supply is based on off-grid solar photo-
voltaic energy, while the control unit consists of low cost and commercially avail-
able Arduino controllers. Similarly, the communication network consists of
Arduino Uno-based transmitters and receivers. Finally, the pumping system con-
sists of DC water pumps, relays, water tank, and ultrasonic sensor for water level
detection. Finally, the sensing system consists of temperature and mois-
ture sensors.
Bouzguenda et al. 5

Sensing Control Water

Soil
System Circuit Pump

Power Supply

Figure 2. Block diagram for the smart irrigation system.

Irrigation system operation

During the irrigation process, the controller makes sure that the water tank is
full by continuously reading the water level detector signal. The controller
reads the moisture level and checks the volumetric water content. If the moisture
level is higher than the threshold value, then there is no need for watering.
Otherwise, it will check the ambient temperature. If the latter is higher
than 30
C, for instance, then no irrigation is permitted. Otherwise, the water
pumping relays are activated and the irrigation starts. While the pumping is
taking place, the moisture level is monitored and once the moisture level reaches
the threshold level, water pumping is stopped. The corresponding flowchart
is summarized in Figure 3.

Proposed smart irrigation system component

The experimental setup for the smart irrigation system is shown in Figure 4. The
following subsections describe each of the component functions.

Power supply
The power supply system is an off-grid type and it consists of three major compo-
nents. These are the solar panels, storage batteries, and charge controller. In the
heart of the solar-based power supply is the charge controller. The latter controls
the power flow into and out of the storage batteries and the water pumping system,
controllers, and the communication network. The number of solar panels, the
size and type of batteries, as well as the charge controller depend on the daily
electricity demand for the Arduino controllers, water pumping, and communica-
tion network.

Arduino controller and communication network

The controller and the communication network reflect the most significant feature
of the proposed irrigation system. Their functions and characteristics are discussed
in detail in the following subsections. A controller unit is needed to read, process,
6 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

Figure 3. Flowchart of the smart automatic irrigation system.

Figure 4. Proposed smart automatic irrigation system.

Bouzguenda et al. 7

Table 2. HC-12 system specifications.

Parameters Range

Wireless working frequency band 433.4–473.0 MHz

Number of channels/stepping frequency 100/400 kHz
Transmitting power 1 dBm (0.79 mW) to 20 dBm (100 mW)
Receiving sensitivity 117 dBm (0.019 pW) to 100 dBm (10 pW)

and analyze the data from various sensors and specify the actions needed to
initiate or stop the irrigation process as well as making sure that the water
tank is continuously filled. There are many microcontrollers and
microcontroller platforms available in the market. However, Arduino exhibits a
simplified process when working with microcontrollers and it offers the
following advantages over other systems. In fact, Arduino is inexpensive, cross-
platform, simple, clear programming environment, open source, and extensible
software. Based on the above reasons, the Arduino Uno controller is used in
this work.

The Arduino Uno controller

The Arduino Uno shown in Figure 4 is based on the ATmega328. It has 14 digital
input/output pins, 6 analog inputs, a 16 MHz crystal oscillator, a USB connection,
a power jack, a reset button, and an ICSP header. The latter facilitates its pro-
gramming while Arduino is being connected to the board.

HC-12 SI4463 wireless transceiver module

To receive the readings from the sensors and send the commands to the relays to
operate the water pumps, a communication network is needed. Due to the nature
of water pumping over long distances of few hundred meters, a wireless commu-
nication network is desirable and therefore is selected for the proposed smart
irrigation system. The most suitable system is the HC-12 system due to its many
features as shown in Table 2.

System design
The prototype smart irrigation system is designed for one HC-12 SI4463 wireless
transceiver module, two Arduino Uno cards, one moisture sensor, one temperature
sensor, one DC water pump, and one ultrasonic sensor. Other components include
wiring, relays, water, and support structure. The number of solar panels, the
charge controller, and the batteries depend on the expected energy required for
irrigation. Sizing the power supply requires many steps such as energy requirement
assessment, planning and site survey, solar resource availability assessment, system
8 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

Water Level sensor

Solar PV DC-pump Charger Controller

Moisture Sensor

Relay

Wireless network
Arduino Controller

Figure 5. Photograph of the experimental setup.

Table 3. Daily energy required for the irrigation system.

Number Voltage Current Power Operating Energy

Device of items (V) (mA) (mW) time (W h)

DC water pump 1 12 2200 26,400 1.25 33.000

Arduino microcontroller 1 12 100 1200 12 14.400
HC12 wireless communication 1 5 7.2 36 12 0.432
Temperature sensor 1 5 0.3 1.5 12 0.018
Ultrasonic sensor 1 5 0.3 1.5 12 0.018
Moisture sensor 1 5 3.5 17.5 12 0.210
Daily energy (W h) 48
Adjusted daily energy (W h) 60

concept development, and sizing and selection of PV system main components.

Experimental setup is shown in Figure 5.

Energy requirement assessment

For maximum irrigation benefits, estimating the energy requirement is the most
important task that needs to be done properly and takes into powered equipment,
operating power and time for each item, and daily energy requirement for each
item. Table 3 presents the energy requirement for the solar PV system. The bottom
row of the table presents the adjusted daily energy assuming a 25% correc-
tion factor.
Bouzguenda et al. 9

Battery selection
For a 12 V system, we need a 12 V battery, so the capacity of the battery is

Daily Energy 60 W h
Battery Capacity ¼ ¼ ¼ 5:00 A h (1)
Battery Voltage 12 V

However, during charging and discharging, there are 20% energy losses and the
estimated battery capacity is

5:00
Battery Capacity ¼ ¼ 6:25 A h (2)
0:8

Finally, for extended lifetime operation, the battery must have minimum depth
of discharge (DOD). In this study, a 50% DOD is assumed and therefore the
battery size shall be at least 12.50 A h as shown in the following equation

6:25
Battery Capacity ¼ ¼ 12:50 A h (3)
0:50

Therefore, the system needs about 12.50 A h daily and therefore, the most suit-
able battery is 15 A h, which is available in the market.

Solar panel sizing

The solar panels should be able to fully charge the battery during the day. In KSA,
the peak sunshine duration is 5 h/day

Total Battery Energy ðW hÞ 0:50  12:5 A h  12 V

Solar Panel power ¼ ¼ ¼ 15 W
Charging time ðhÞ 5h
(4)

In this study, one 15 W polycrystalline solar panel was selected as the main
power supply. Its specifications are given in Table 4.

Charger controller selection

The charger controller is used to protect the battery from overcharging and to
maintain a constant voltage for the system. Since we are using a 12 V solar panel,
we need a 12 V charger controller. The estimated current for the charge controller
with a 25% safety factor is

15
I cc ¼ 1:25  ¼ 1:56 A (5)
1:25
10 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

Table 4. Selected solar PV specifications.

Specifications Values

Rated Max power (Pmax) 15 W

Current at Pmax (Imp) 0.72 A
Voltage at Pmax (Vmp) 20.10 V
Short-circuit current (Isc) 0.82 A
Open-circuit voltage (Voc) 25.20 V
Normal operating cell Temp (Tnoct) 45
C
Maximum system voltage 600 V
No. of cells 42

Table 5. Solar panel performance for a single day (15 April 2018).

Time Voltage (V) Current (A) Power (W)

6:00 a.m. 0.64 0.121 0.077

8:00 a.m. 20.37 0.457 9.309
10:00 a.m. 23.06 0.536 12.360
11:00 a.m. 23.33 0.632 14.745
12:00 p.m. 23.43 0.711 16.659
14:00 p.m. 24.69 0.558 13.777
16:00 p.m. 21.33 0.489 10.430
18:00 p.m. 0.628 0.000 0.000

The minimum rating for a charge controller commercially available is 10 A.

Result and discussions

Properly testing the solar panel is very important to confirm that it works as
specified in the datasheet. The solar panel has been tested to confirm its solar
power output before installation. The power measurements were taken at King
Faisal University for one day (15 April 2018) and are shown in Table 5.
Figure 6 displays the variation of voltage, current, and power for the selected
solar panel. As expected, the maximum power of 16.659 W was recorded at
12:00 p.m.

Cost analysis
The total cost of the off-grid smart irrigation system includes that of the solar
panel, batteries, charge controller, sensors, and Arduino controllers. Table 6
presents the cost breakdown of the system in Saudi Riyals (SAR) (US
$1 ¼ 3.75 SAR).
Bouzguenda et al. 11

Solar Panel Performance

Voltage (V) Power (W) Current (A)
30 0.8

0.7
25
0.6
20
Voltage / Power

0.5

Current
15 0.4

0.3
10
0.2
5
0.1

0 0.0
0.00 4.00 8.00 12.00 16.00 20.00 24.00
Time(hour)

Figure 6. Daily average solar panel power (on 15 April 2018).

Table 6. Expected cost of proposed project system.

Component Price (SAR)

Solar panel 125.00

Batteries (2) 440.00
Charge controller 60.00
Water pump 32.00
Arduino controller 25.00
HC12 wireless communication 50.00
Temperature sensor 8.00
Ultrasonic sensor 8.00
Moisture sensor 8.00
Total cost 756.00

Conclusions
In this paper, the design and implementation of a smart irrigation system powered
by solar energy were presented. The design uses an automatic irrigation system
that can be tailored to the type of food crop being grown. The demonstration was
conducted in a special short course in renewable energy. Most students in this
course reported that short in-class demonstrations helped improve learning.
Generally, positive student feedback and the authors’ experience suggest that the
proposed project is successful and beneficial to agriculture. In addition, the project
is a unique undergraduate level learning experience that combined some of the
electrical engineering courses and hands-on experience. Due to this well executed
project this smart irrigation system prototype was selected for demonstration pur-
poses at the university and at national levels during the second semester and the
following semesters as well.
12 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to express their appreciation to King Faisal University administration for
the continued support. In addition, the authors would like to acknowledge that Mr Rashed,
Adnan S Ahmad and S Ahmad M have participated in building and testing the prototype.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article: This work is funded by Deanship of Scientific
Research at King Faisal University, grant number 186090.

ORCID iD
S Rajamohamed https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6966-3767

References
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in-north-america/ (accessed 20 September 2018).
3. Basalike P. Design, optimization and economic analysis of photovoltaic water pumping
technologies, case Rwanda. Engineering and Technology, Master thesis, M€alardalen
University, School of Business, Society and Engineering. Sweden 2015, pp.57–60.
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Turkey. Int J Comput Electr Eng 2012; 4: 161–164.
5. Touati F, Al-Hitmi M and Benhmed K. A Fuzzy logic based irrigation management system
in arid regions applied to the state of Qatar. WIT Trans Ecol Environ 2012; 168: 189–199.
6. Viani F, Bertolli M, Salucci M, et al. Low-cost wireless monitoring and decision support
for water saving in agriculture. IEEE Sensors J 2017; 17: 4299–4309.
7. Alhasan SA. Automating farms irrigation in Saudi Arabia. In: Presented in World
Congress on Industrial Automation, San Francisco, USA, 20–22 July 2015.
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irrigation system for improved water-energy efficiency. In: Fourth IET Clean Energy and
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Lumpur, 2016, pp.1–5.
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10. Karunakar Pothuganti, Anusha Chitneni. A comparative study of wireless protocols:
bluetooth, UWB, ZigBee, and Wi-Fi. Adv Electron Electr Eng 2014; 4: 665–662.
11. Hillman M. An overview of ZigBee networks. MWR Info-Security, www.mwrinfosecur
ity.com (2016, accessed 10 September 2018).
12. Kumbhar H. Wireless sensor network using Xbee on Arduino Platform: An experimen-
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13. https://www.kfu.edu.sa/en/Colleges/AhsaEngineering/Documents/Senior%20Design/
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Appendix 1. ABET student outcome assessment guidelines13

The team advisor shall follow the grading scheme outlined below. The advisor has
control over 50% of the final course grade for each student. This portion of the grade
covers all the activities listed in the “Project Grading” section except for the oral
presentations. Senior design evaluation committee consisting of four members assigns
the remaining 35%. The duties of the evaluation committee are to review the final
report-worth 15% and the oral presentation-worth 20% made by the students at the
end of the semester. The remaining 15% is assigned by the course instructor in the
form of individual and group assignments in which soft skills (f, h, i, j) are assessed.
The overall Student Outcomes assessment for Senior Design I and Senior Design II is
based on the course instructor, project advisor, final report, and oral presentation
committee. All ABET approved outcomes are covered in both courses.

Appendix 2. Senior design proposal form13

Course #

Project Title:
Department: Electrical Engineering
Supervisor (s): Advisor name
Co-Supervisor(s): Co-Advisor name
Minimum Attained Credit Hours: 100 h “This number is set by the department”
Required Skills and Background:
No. of students allowed (2–4): Number of Students
Abstract (Max 250 words) Font/Size: Times New Roman/10
14 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

ABET Requirements for Senior Design

Ensure Components Task/Descriptions Confirm

Nature of Project Design-Oriented Design Oriented
Classification of Design of an System/Component/ Classification
Engineering Product Process
Description of Design Component
Meeting Societal Needs High/Medium/Low Needs
Design Experience Major/Minor Experience
Engineering Standards
Realistic Constraints
Implementation Strategy Case studies/lab Strategy
experiments/other
A physical Product/prototype will be built Yes/No Yes or no?
by the end of the project

Appendix 3. ABET student outcomes assessment results14

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