Volume 4, Issue 12, December – 2019 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology

ISSN No:-2456-2165

Automated Watering and Irrigation

System using Arduino UNO
Vighnesh B. Patil1 Ahmed B. Shah2
1 2
Student, Department of Production Engineering Student, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Dwarkadas J. Sanghvi College of Engineering, Vishwakarma Institute of Technology,
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India Pune, Maharashtra, India

Abstract:- Agriculture is one of the most important A. Need of the System

sectors of India and contributes to 18 percent of India’s The main need of the system for the agricultural sector
GDP. The irrigation system used determines the quality arises because of the loss of yield due to improper irrigation
of the yield and affects the sector. The conventional which is quite significant. An automated system will deliver
irrigation systems used in major parts of the country do optimum amount of water depending upon the soil moisture
not provide the optimum yield for crops. The main content. The soil moisture content can be remotely
objective of the project is to develop an Automated monitored which eliminates the possibility of over irrigation
Watering and Irrigation System that can be used to or under irrigation. This also reduces the wastage of water,
improve the conventional systems. The project is not the manual labour cost and saves farmers from some of the
only restricted to the agricultural field but can also be tedious field work.
implemented at our homes or at commercial
establishments having accommodation for lawns and In the commercial and domestic sector like offices,
plants. workspaces and homes where there are indoor plants and
lawns, the need of an automated system arises. The system
Keywords:- Automation, Irrigation, Arduino, Soil Moisture would be cheaper and more effective in maintenance of
Sensor, IoT. plants and lawns as compared to its human counterpart.

I. INTRODUCTION II. SYSTEM DESIGN AND FUNCTIONING

Water is one of the most important aspects for the A. System Overview
growth of plants. The amount of water determines the rate This paper discusses an automated watering and
of growth and life of the plant, and excess or scarcity of irrigation system which can supply water to the crops when
water can hinder their growth. Irrigation is an artificial needed as well as adjust the amount of water supplied
watering technique which plays an important role in depending on the soil moisture content. The sensors sense
agriculture in India. Irrigation aids in the growth of crops, moisture content by sending an electrical current through the
maintenance of landscapes and revegetation of soils in arid soil and measuring the output resistance. Since water
regions and through periods of less than average conducts electricity, the output resistance determines the
precipitation. The conventional way of irrigation involves amount of water present in the soil. Whenever, the
irrigating the fields manually by using sprinkler systems, resistance increases, it means that the moisture content of
furrow irrigation, drip irrigation or manual labour. One of the soil has dropped.
the major downsides of this conventional irrigation is that
the amount of water supplied to the crop is incalculable. As B. Construction
a result of which, the crops do not receive optimum amount The system uses an Arduino Uno microcontroller as its
of water for growth, hindering their yield. In this paper we core control system. A 4 module, 5V relay is connected to
will be discussing the working of an automated irrigation the Arduino. This relay is used to actuate the two solenoid
system which will allow farmers to irrigate, and monitor the valves and the pump. The two soil moisture sensors (EC-
soil moisture content to optimise the yield of their 1258) are also connected to the Arduino. There is a water
crops. The system can be slightly modified to accommodate supply to the solenoids through a pump which draws water
other watering applications. from a reservoir. The Wi-Fi module (ESP-8266) is also
connected to the Arduino.

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Volume 4, Issue 12, December – 2019 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165

Fig 1:- Electric Circuit and Connections Diagram.

The Arduino is supplied power through a power bank C. Working

operating at 5V DC. The relay and soil moisture sensor use The system works on the principle of sensing and
the same pass through 5V DC from the Arduino board. The actuation. The soil moisture sensor is intended for the
Wi-Fi module operates on 3.5V DC provided by the measurement of moisture in the soil which is connected to a
Arduino board’s 3.5V pin. The pump and solenoid valves microcontroller (in our case an Arduino UNO). After
are provided with a separate supply by a single 12V, 4A DC sensing, the sensor sends the moisture content of the soil in
connection. that section. If it is below 20%, the Arduino will send a
signal to the relay which would actuate the pump. The pump
is connected to the solenoid valve which would deliver the
water to that particular section when it is required.

Fig 2:- System Setup

The main advantage of using this system is to reduce D. Internet of Things (IoT) Integration
human interference and, ensure proper and timely irrigation. We have used a free service known as ThingSpeak to
The logs and information of the watering schedule is integrate IoT functionality in the project. “ThingSpeak is
uploaded to a cloud server called ThingSpeak. This data can an open-source Internet of Things (IoT) application
be used for research in the field of agriculture. and API to store and retrieve data from things using
the HTTP and MQTT protocol over the Internet or via a

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Volume 4, Issue 12, December – 2019 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
Local Area Network. ThingSpeak enables the creation of int Sens1, Sens2;
sensor logging applications, location tracking applications, void setup()
and a social network of things with status updates. {
ThingSpeak has integrated support from the numerical pinMode(A0,INPUT); //Set pin A0 as Sensor 1
computing software MATLAB from MathWorks, allowing pinMode(A1,INPUT); //Set pin A1 as Sensor 2
ThingSpeak users to analyze and visualize uploaded data pinMode(8,OUTPUT); //Set pin 8 as Relay 1 (Pump)
using Matlab without requiring the purchase of a Matlab pinMode(12,OUTPUT); //Set pin 12 as Relay 2 (Valve 1)
license from Mathworks.”1 pinMode(13,OUTPUT); //Set pin 13 as Relay 3 (Valve 2)
//relays are in NO (normally open) condition
The data from the sensor is sent to the Arduino which Serial.begin(9600);
is connected to the Wi-Fi Module (ESP-8266) which sends }
data to our ThingSpeak server. This collected data can be
accessed by anyone who has access to the channel. This data void loop()
can be used for monitoring the soil moisture at any given {
time or can be used in analysis and research of the water Sens1= analogRead(A0);
intake of plants or the water holding capacity of soil. Sens2= analogRead(A1);
Sens1= map(Sens1,1017,0,0,100); //calibration of Sensor
E. Dataflow Diagram and Sample Code 1
Sens2= map(Sens2,1017,0,0,100); //calibration of Sensor
2

if(Sens1<20)
{
digitalWrite(12,LOW); //if soil moisture is less than
20% in section 1, open valve 1 and supply water to section
1
}
else if(Sens1>50 && Sens1<100)
{
digitalWrite(12,HIGH); //if soil moisture is greater
than 50% in section 1, close valve 1 and stop water supply
to section 1
}

if(Sens2<20)
{
digitalWrite(13,LOW); //if soil moisture is less than
20% in section 2, open valve 2 and supply water to section
2
}
else if(Sens2>50 && Sens2<100)
{
digitalWrite(13,HIGH); //if soil moisture is greater
Fig 3:- Dataflow Diagram of Automated Watering and than 50% in section 2, close valve 2 and stop water supply
Irrigation System to section 2
}
Sample code for reading data from moisture sensors
and supplying water is given below. The code which allows if(Sens1<20 || Sens2<20)
the Wi-Fi module to communicate with the server was taken {
from the ThingSpeak GitHub server.2 The code mentioned digitalWrite(8,LOW); //pump on
in this paper only contains the original and integral part }
responsible for sensor control and actuation of valves. if(Sens1>50 && Sens2>50)
{
digitalWrite(8,HIGH); //pump off
}
1
ThingSpeak. Wikipedia. }
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThingSpeak.
2
Mathworks. mathworks/thingspeak-arduino. GitHub
ThingSpeak Communication Library for Arduino, ESP8266
and ESP32. https://github.com/mathworks/thingspeak-
arduino.

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Volume 4, Issue 12, December – 2019 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION IV. CONCLUSION

A. Sample Code Test Run Results The automated watering and irrigation system is a
solution to the improper irrigation and watering problem for
crops and plants. It will not only increase the yield of crops
but also prevent water wastage. It is also a very versatile
system as it finds its application in agricultural, domestic
and commercial sectors. This system can easily be self-
sustaining by use of a solar panel.

A. Future scope
 Hydroponics: Hydroponics is the method of growing
crops or plants without the presence of soil. It makes use
of water which is enriched with nutrients that are
important for plant growth so that the need of soil can be
eliminated. Our system could be useful in the field of
hydroponics as it could automate the whole process,
provide crops or plants with optimum amount of water
Fig 4:- Test Run Results
and nutrients at optimum time intervals and could give
The above shown graphs represent the sensor data the consumers accurate data.
 Mobile application: We plan to develop an application
taken from a sample test run using the sample code. Field 1
chart represents the soil moisture measured by sensor 1 in for the consumers so that they can remotely monitor
their plants or crops. Also, this app will allow the user to
test section 1 and field 2 chart represents the soil moisture
measured by sensor 2 in test section 2. The sensor data toggle the system or only specific sections of the system
interval is 15 seconds i.e. the sensor send moisture data on and off.
 Database: We plan to develop an SQL database which
every 15 seconds.
will store all the incoming data from the soil moisture
As shown by the graphs, when moisture in the soil sensors. This database could be useful in research as it
would contain the daily water consumption of crops.
drops below 20%, water is supplied to that section of soil till
This could help determine the life cycle of plants and
it reaches a moisture content of 50-100%.
help in reduction of yield time, optimizing the yield and
B. Advantages thus improve the productivity of crops. The data could
also be used to create genetically modified organisms
 The system eliminates the need of human interference.
(GMOs) as the full life cycle details of a crop will be
 Operating cost includes only cost of electricity which is
much less than the current labour cost for irrigation of available to the researchers.
crops on farms or watering of plants in office spaces.
 Initial cost for installation of system is low (≈3,500 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
INR).
 The crops or plants receive optimum amount of water. A great deal of hard work and dedication was put into
Thus, wastage of water or loss of yield due to improper the project. We would like thank all the individuals who
irrigation is eliminated. have given their suggestions and input without which this
 The system provides live data and feedback which can paper would not have been completed successfully.
be compiled and studied to build databases for the crops.
We would like to express our gratitude to Ms.
C. Limitations Madhura Sohoni, Department of Biotechnology, Jai Hind
 The absence of a graphical user interface (GUI) like a College (Autonomous), who helped us structure the paper
mobile or desktop app makes it difficult to monitor the and gave us new ideas regarding the future scope of the
system and its data. system.
 The operation of the system cannot be remotely
controlled. We would also like to thank our faculty and classmates
 The calibration of the sensor needs to be done through for their constant support, encouragement and assitance
the programming software which might be difficult. throughout this project.
 Adjustments have to be done for the water supply since
different plants require different amount of water.

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Volume 4, Issue 12, December – 2019 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
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