Smart Irrigation based on Crops using IoT

Abstract

Water is the main resource for Agriculture and still, most of the farmers are using traditional methods of irrigation for farming and a large amount of water is getting wasted due to these methods. These outdated techniques have to be replaced with automated techniques. In this paper, we proposed a new irrigation system, which works based on the latest IoT technology to reduce the wastage of water and it reduces manual labor to irrigate the crops. The main objective of the proposed irrigation system is to supply the required amount of water to the crop based on the type and stage of the crop. The proposed irrigation system pumps the water to the crop based on the type, area, and date of the plantation of the crop, and these parameters are registered by the farmer through the IoT-based Android App. The designed irrigation system uses ESP8266 Controller, Moisture, and Water Level sensors for irrigating the crops. The problem with the moisture sensor-based irrigation system is supplying water to the crop only based on the sensor reading, but different crops require different amounts of water at different stages. Hence, in this paper, we divided the total crop duration into five different stages. Based on the type and stage, the crop gets irrigated automatically using the motor incorporated in the circuit and the motor action can be controlled using the algorithm designed for ESP8266. Another problem with the moisture sensor is it shows maximum reading even when the water level is low. This problem can be resolved by using a water level sensor and hence, the proposed smart irrigation system is superior to the existing moisture sensor-based irrigation system. The key factor involved in the proposed methodology is fixing the water level of the crop instead of the quantity of water. The water level is measured by using a level sensor and it measures the water level in terms of the height of water in the field. Hence, the proposed irrigation system works efficiently in both rainy and high-temparature conditions.