remaining of the topic Micro controller based Drip irrigation system

Implementation

     Earlier, farmer faced the problem of sending SMS and making calls, overcoming which we are designing an Android application which does the work by button clicks, here the hardware works in three modes of operation viz. Humidity, Automatic and Manual modes. In Humidity mode, the moisture of the atmosphere is sensed and the switching on/off is done if the weather is dry. In Automatic mode, the hardware automatically turns on the motor for the specified time interval and turns off the motor. In Manual mode, user can turn on and off by pressing the ON/OFF button. All the settings of these features is done via an Android application.     Here we have designed a module using a microcontroller and GSM. Initially farmer needs to check the network by giving a ring to the particular modem number which is implemented near the motor. A user enters the username and password given, which when matches allows the user to switch between the different modes provided. If the password fails to match, no action is taken. In every stage it will send the status to the farmer (authenticated user).i.e., whether the motor is on or off through an SMS. If the motor is on and the farmer needs to switch off he just needs to send an SMS to the same number. The complete operation can be handled by sending an SMS, i.e. by sending ON motor gets on, and by sending OFF motor gets off.     We have three modes of operation. In Humidity mode, the humidity sensor checks the
moisture content in the farm and accordingly provides the water required for the crops. In
Automatic mode, the timer is set and the motor turns ON/OFF automatically for a certain amount
of time. In Manual mode, the farmer has to press ON/OFF for the working of the motor.moisture content in the farm and accordingly provides the water required for the crops. InAutomatic mode, the timer is set and the motor turns ON/OFF automatically for a certain amountof time. In Manual mode, the farmer has to press ON/OFF for the working of the motor.

Modern irrigation system

     The conventional irrigation methods like overhead sprinklers, flood type feeding systems
usually wet the lower leaves and stem of the plants. The entire soil surface is saturated and often
stays wet long after irrigation is completed. Such condition promotes infections by leaf mold
fungi. The flood type methods consume large amount of water and the area between crop rows
remains dry and receives moisture only from incidental rainfall. On the contrary the drip or
trickle irrigation is a type of modern irrigation technique that slowly applies small amounts of
water to part of plant root zone. Drip irrigation method is invented by Israelis in 1970s. Water is
supplied frequently, often daily to maintain favourable soil moisture condition and prevent
moisture stress in the plant with proper use of water resources.A wetted profile developed in the plant's root zone. Its shape depends on soil characteristics.

Drip irrigation saves water because only the plant's root zone receives moisture. Little water is
lost to deep percolation if the proper amount is applied. Drip irrigation is popular because it canincrease yields and decrease both water requirements and labour. Drip irrigation requires about half of the water needed by sprinkler or surface irrigation. Lower operating pressures and flow rates result in reduced energy costs. A higher degree of water control is attainable. Plants can be supplied with more precise amounts of water. Disease and insect damage is reduced because plant foliage stays dry. Operating cost is usually reduced. Field operations may continue during the irrigation process because rows between plants remain dry. Fertilizers can be applied through this type of system. This can result in a reduction of fertilizer and fertilizer costs. . When compared with overhead sprinkler systems, drip irrigation leads to less soil and wind erosion. Drip irrigation can be applied under a wide range of field conditions. A typical Drip irrigation assembly is shown in figure below

Design of Micro Controller Based Drip Irrigation System

Flow : You can measure the output of your water supply with a 1 or 1.5 liter bucket and a stopwatch. Time how long it takes to fill the bucket and use that number to calculate how much water is available per hour. liter per minute x 60=number of liter per hour

Pressure : (The force pushing the flow): Most products operate best between 1.378 to 2.757 bar. Normal household pressure is 2.757 to 3.447 bar.

Water Supply & Quality : City and well water are easy to filter for drip irrigation systems. Pond, ditch and some well water have special filtering needs. The quality and source of water will dictate the type of filter necessary for your system. 

Soil Type and Root Structure : The soil type will dictate how a regular drip of water on one spot will spread. Sandy soil requires closer emitter spacing as water percolates vertically at a fast rate and slower horizontally. With a clay soil water tends to spread horizontally, giving a wide distribution pattern. Emitters can be spaced further apart with clay type soil. A loamy type soil will produce a more even percolation dispersion of water. Deep-rooted plants can handle a wider spacing of emitters, while shallow rooted plants are most efficiently watered slowly (low gph emitters) with emitters spaced close together. On clay soil or on a hillside, short cycles repeated frequently work best. On sandy soil, applying water with higher gph emitters lets the water spread out horizontally better than a low gph emitter.

Elevation : Variations in elevation can cause a change in water pressure within the system. Pressure changes by one pound for every 2.3 foot change in elevation. Pressure-compensating emitters are designed to work in areas with large changes in elevation.

Timing : Watering in a regular scheduled cycle is essential. On clay soil or hillsides, short cycles repeated frequently work best to prevent runoff, erosion and wasted water. In sandy soils, slow watering using low output emitters is recommended. Timers help prevent the too-dry/too-wet cycles that stress plants and retard their growth. They also allow for watering at optimum times such as early morning or late evening.

Watering Needs: Plants with different water needs may require their own watering circuits. For example, orchards that get watered weekly need a different circuit than a garden that gets watered daily. Plants that are drought tolerant will need to be watered differently than plants requiring a lot of water.

The components of microcontroller based drip irrigation system are as follows: -

•  Pump
•  Water Filter
•  Flow Meter
•  Control Valve
•  Chemical Injection Unit
•  Drip lines with Emitters
•  Moisture and Temperature Sensors.
•  Microcontroller unit

Microcontroller Unite

     The microcontroller unit is now explained in detail:-AT89C51 is an 8-bit microcontrollerand belongs to Atmel's 8051 family. ATMEL 89C51 has 4KB of Flash programmable anderasable read only memory (PEROM) and 128 bytes of RAM. It can be erased and program to a maximum of 1000 times.The automated control system consists of moisture sensors, temperature sensors, Signal

conditioning circuit, Digital to analogy converter, LCD Module, Relay driver, solenoid control valves, etc.

Modes of Operation

A. Humidity Settings Manager

     This module is used to check the moisture content around the field area. The moisture sensor is connected to the 8081 microcontroller which in turn is connected to the water pump, will sense the moisture surrounding the farmer’s field area. If the moisture rate is below the threshold rate that is mentioned while developing the embedded system, the water pump will be switched on automatically. Else if the moisture rate is above the threshold rate then the water pump will not be turned on. The Humidity Mode can be set by sending an SMS as SET1 to the GSM modem in the embedded system connected to the system.

B. Automatic Motor Controller:

     This module is used to control the pump automatically. The pump will be turned on automatically every day at a particular time for 2 minutes, immediately after 2 minutes the pump will turns off. The turning on and off of the pump will work regardless of the moisture rate around the field area. This automatic mode can be set by sending an SMS containing SET2 to the GSM modem in the embedded system connected to the pump.

C. Manual Controller Manager

     This module is used to control the water pump manually, though without farmer’s physical presence. We can turn on/off the pump when we require it to. There is no particular time to switch it on or there is no time limit when to turn it off. This module works just by sending an SMS as ON to switch on the motor and OFF to turn off the motor. This SMS has to be sent to the GSM modem connected to the pump.

Application To Field

     The important parameters to be measured for automation of irrigation system are soil moisture and temperature. The entire field is first divided in to small sections such that each section should contain one moisture sensor and a temperature sensor. RTD like PT100 can be used as a temperature sensor while Tensiometer can be used as the moisture sensor to detect moisture contents of soil. These sensors are buried in the ground at required depth. Once the soil has reached desired moisture level the sensors send a signal to the microcontroller to turn off the relays, which control the valves.

The signal send by the sensor is boosted upto the required level by corresponding amplifier stages. Then the amplified signal is fed to A/D converters of desired resolution to obtain digital form of sensed input for microcontroller use. A 16X1 line LCD module can be used in the system to monitor current readings of all the sensors and the current status of respective valves. The solenoid valves are controlled by microcontroller though relays.A Chemical injection unit is used to mix required amount of fertilizers, pesticides, and nutrients with water, whenever required. Varying speed of pump motor can control pressure of water. It can be obtained with the help of PWM output of microcontroller unit. A flow meter is attached for analysis of total water consumed. The required readings can be transferred to the Centralized Computer for further analytical studies, through the serial port present on microcontroller unit. While applying the automation on large fields more than one such microcontroller units can be interfaced to the Centralized Computer.The microcontroller unit has in-built timer in it, which operates parallel to sensor system. In case of sensor failure the timer turns off the valves after a threshold level of time, which may prevent the further disaster. The microcontroller unit may warn the pump failure or insufficient amount of water input with the help of flow meter

Case Study

     analysis the effects of land tenure and property right on agricultural productivity

using Ethiopia, Namibia and Bangladesh as case study. They said that basic problem of low agriculture output is shortage of land and population pressure. The major focus of this paper is describe all the matters regarding land tenure system, its rights, agricultural productivity and effects due to change in climate. The results proved that proper land ownership policy is important for the majority of rural areas because their quality of life is totally dependent on farming. Besides that land administration departments of these countries should play their efficient role in ensuring proper land tenure and property rights

     studied the effects of weather change on the agriculture production and effects of internal and international migration on the production of the agriculture output. He found form the study that climate change will force the people to migrate from rural areas to urban areas. This situation will affect the agricultural production. Global warming is likely to decrease the challenges faced by the agricultural workers. However it is clear from the facts that previous policies are insufficient to cope up with current flow of migration from the agricultural sector due to change in climate. For this purpose combined effort is required from the host government, international community, and a commitment of resources towards developing and such inventive options in order to make rural sector more attractive.

     studied the south-western Rwanda and examines the degree to which farmer can improve agricultural productivity by the implementation of different agriculture principals. The study revolves around certain factors such as demographic pressure, deforestation, soil erosion and land degradation and these problems act as low agricultural output. These factors are interlinked and affected each other. The analysis from the study suggests that conventional agriculture or industrial agriculture may not solve the problem of food insecurity and improve environmental degradation. The main challenge to us is how to increase the productivity? The result of this paper tells us that we increase our agriculture output by human assets, social assets, physical assets and financial assets. Through these we can improve our productivity and environment.

Conclusion

     The Microcontroller based drip irrigation system proves to be a real time feedback control system which monitors and controls all the activities of drip irrigation system efficiently. The present proposal is a model to modernize the agriculture industries at a mass scale with optimum expenditure. Using this system, one can save manpower, water to improve production and ultimately profit. During the implementation, number of conclusions has been considered based on the practical results obtained from the implemented systems and the following are the most important ones: The system designed is cost effective when compared with other approaches to build such systems. The purpose of designing of Automatic Plant Irrigation System is successfully achieved and fulfils the desired objectives. The hardware and software used performed their function properly to produce desired result which is the required for the farmers in the irrigation field. Interfacing of run time switches with microcontroller makes it flexible in respect of time settings for running a water pipe line. Using this system, farmers will get the protection while doing the irrigation work in extremely odd weather conditions, hard work of repeated assembly and will get rid of poisonous reptiles. The system, which is designed, will help the farmers to do the irrigation process in night also. The system designed do not requires the physical presence of the farmers during irrigation in the fields. The system is automatically monitored and controls the pump on and off.

References

[1]. Clemmens, A.J. 1990. Feedback Control for Surface Irrigation Management in: Visions of the Future. ASAE Publication 04-90. American Society of Agricultural Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan, pp. 255-260.

[2]. Fangmeier, D.D., Garrot, D.J., Mancino , C.F. and S.H. Housman. 1990. Automated Irrigation Systems Using Plant and Soil Sensors. In: Visions of the Future. ASAE Publication 04-90. American Society of Agricultural Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan, pp. 533-537.

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[5]. Gonzalez, R.A., Struve, D.K. and L.C. Brown. 1992. A computer-controlled drip irrigation system for container plant production. Hort Technology. 2(3):402-407.

[6]. Wanjura, D.F., Upchurch, D.R. and W. M. Webb. 1991. An automated control system for studying micro irrigation. ASAE Annual International Meeting, Paper No. 91-21

[7].California Dep't of Water Resources, 1998. Bulletin No. 160-98, The California

Water Plan Update. DWR, Sacramento, CA.

[8]. US Bureau of Reclamation, Land Retirement program, Year Two, Annual Report

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[9] Abhinav Rajpal, Sumit Jain, Nistha Khare and Anil Kumar Shukla, “Microcontroller based Automatic Irrigation System with Moisture Sensors”, Proceedings of the International Conference on Science and Engineering, 2011, pp. 94-96 [10] Venkata Naga

[10] Venkata Naga RohitGunturi, “MicroController Based Automatic Plant Irrigation System”, International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology, Volume 2, Issue4, April-2013