Arduino and NodeMCU-Based Smart Soil Moisture Balancer with IoT Integration

Abstract

AbstractWithout proper moisture in the soil, the process of agriculture can fall in danger, which can lead to even an economic collapse for a country. However, over-irrigation, under irrigation, or improper water distribution can result in crop damage and reduced productivity, which leads to waste of valuable resources including water. To contribute to addressing this issue, a smart soil moisture balancer is developed based on Internet of Things (IoT), with the help of a soil moisture sensor, water pump control, water flow meter, water level indicator, Arduino Uno, and NodeMCU with built-in Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence) module. The developed system intelligently controls the irrigation pump’s switching based on the data collected from a soil moisture sensor. The water level indicator provides data on water availability in the storage, and the water flow meter provides data on water flow rate, which gets transmitted to the ThingSpeak IoT server that stores the data and generates graphs to help with the analysis and making future decisions. A prototype of the developed system is made, verified, and tested to be working perfectly as designed and programmed. In the experiment with the prototype, it is found that the system saves 36.17% of water in case of sandy soil, 37.08% and 32.90% in case of clay soil and loamy soil, respectively. On average, the system saves 35.38% of the water, which in turn can save other intertwined resources like time and energy, keeping the efficiency of the irrigation system.KeywordsIoTSoil moistureIrrigationWater flow meterPump controlWater level indicatorSensorArduino UnoNodeMCUThingSpeak