Scheduling Drip Irrigation for Agricultural Crops using Intelligent Irrigation System

Abstract

The expansion of agriculture to provide the necessary food is related to the availability of water, but the limited availability of irrigation requires research on techniques to reduce water losses. This paper presents an application of a prototype design of microcontroller based on an intelligent irrigation system which will allow irrigation to take place in the areas. This method can be applied to the system of drip irrigation and its impact on the quantities of water used in irrigation as its application is part of the solution to the problem of water shortage suffered by Libya in addition to reducing the amount of water wasted while irrigating crops. In this study, a network of smart irrigation system was designed for a 5-hectare farm in AL-Sawawa area, located to the east, at about 20 km from Sirte city. The farm was divided into two parts, a vegetable crops section with an area of 3ha and the other section of 2 ha for olive trees. The intelligent irrigation system senses the moisture content of the soil and the temperature of the air through the sensors and turns on or off the water pumps using the relays to carry out this procedure. The main advantage of using this irrigation system is to minimize human intervention and ensure proper irrigation. The microcontroller serves as the main unit of the entire irrigation system, Photovoltaic cells are used to provide solar energy as an energy supply for the whole system. The system is controlled by the microcontroller; it obtains data from the sensors, it compares the data as pre-programmed, and the output signals activate the relays to operate the pumps to start the irrigation process.