GSM based Automatic Irrigation Control System for Efficient Use of Resources and Crop Planning by Using an Android Mobile

Abstract

The greenhouse based modern agriculture industries are the recent requirement in every part of agriculture in India. In this technology, the humidity and temperature of plants are precisely controlled. Due to the variable atmospheric circumstances these conditions sometimes may vary from place to place in large farmhouse, which makes very difficult to maintain the uniformity at all the places in the farmhouse manually. It is observed that for the first time an android phone-control the Irrigation system, which could give the facilities of maintaining uniform environmental conditions are proposed. The Android Software Development Kit provides the tools and Application Programmable Interface necessary to begin developing applications on the Android platform using the Java programming language. Mobile phones have almost become an integral part of human life serving multiple needs of humans. This application makes use of the GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) feature of mobile phone as a solution for irrigation control system. GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) is used to inform the user about the exact field condition. The information is passed onto the user request in the form of SMS. Drip irrigation is artificial method of supplying water to the roots of the plant. It is also called micro irrigation. In past few years there is a rapid growth in this system. The user communicates with the centralized unit through SMS. The centralized unit communicates with the system through SMS which will be received by the GSM with the help of the SIM card. The GSM sends this data to ARM7which is also continuously receives the data from sensors in some form of codes. After processing, this data is displayed on the LCD. Thus in short whenever the system receives the activation command from the subscriber it checks all the field conditions and gives a detailed feedback to the user and waits for another activation command to start the motor. The motor is controlled by a simple manipulation in the internal structure of the starter. The starter coil is indirectly activated by means of a transistorized relay circuit. When the motor is started, a constant monitoring on soil moisture and water level is done & once the soil moisture is reached to sufficient level the motor is automatically turned off & a massage is send to subscriber that the motor is turned off. The water level indicator indicates three levels low, medium, high and also empty tank. Shen etc. al (2007) introduced a GSM-SMS remote measurement and control system for greenhouse based on PC-based database system connected with base station. Base station is developed by using a microcontroller, GSM module, sensors and actuators. In practical operation, the central station receives and sends messages through GSM module. Criterion value of parameters to be measured in every base station is set by central station, and then in base stations parameters including the air temperature, the air humidity. Indu etc. al (2013) mainly focuses on reviews in the field of remote monitoring and control, the technology used and their potential advantages. The paper proposes an innovative GSM/Bluetooth based remote controlled embedded system for irrigation. The system sets the irrigation time depending on the temperature and humidity reading from sensors and type of crop and can automatically irrigate the field when unattended. Information is exchanged between far end and designed system via SMS on GSM network. A Bluetooth module is also interfaced with the main microcontroller chip which eliminates the SMS charges when the user is within the limited range of few meters to the designated system. The system informs users about many conditions like status of electricity, dry running motor, increased temperature, water content in soil and smoke via SMS on GSM network or by Bluetooth. The GSM based irrigation system (Fig.1) may offer users the flexibility to regulate and control the operations of their irrigation systems with little intervention to reduce runoff from over watering for improvement in crop yield. This enables users to take advantage of the globally deployed GSM networks with its low SMS service cost to use mobile phones and simple SMS commands to manage their irrigation system. It will be possible for users to use SMS to monitor directly the conditions of their farmland, schedule the water