Proceedings of 2017 IEEE International Conference on Circuits and Systems (ICCS2017)

Automatic Plant Irrigation System using Arduino

Devika CM Karthika Bose Vijayalekshmy S

Department of Electrical and Department of Electrical and Department of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering Electronics Engineering Electronics Engineering
Marian Engineering College Marian Engineering College Marian Engineering College

Abstract—In the present era, food scarcity and water scarcity needed to water the plants. Resistance of soil varies with
occurs due to the increase in population. So to avoid this moisture. We are taking this resistance as one arm of an
problem we have to promote the agriculture sector . But water voltage divider whose other are consists of 470 K
wastage is more in this sector in the form of water logging while resistor.According to voltage division rule,
watering the agricultural fields through irrigation. Therefore an ோ
automatic plant irrigation system has to be designed for the ܸ௠ ൌ  ೘ ܸ௦ (1)
proper water supply in the fields. This paper deals with an ோ೅ 
automatic plant irrigation system which automatically senses the ோ
moisture content of the soil and decide whether irrigation is ܸ௠ ൌ  భ (2)
ோ ାோ
భ మ
needed or not and how much water is needed for soil. This system
Where
uses AtMega328 microcontroller. It is programmed to sense the
moisture content if the soil over a period of time. When the Vm – Voltage across the mth resistor
moisture content is less than the limit which is predefined, it will Rm – Resistance across which the voltage is to be determined
start supplying the desired amount of water till it reaches the RT – Total resistance
limit. So when the soil is dry the pump will automatically water R1 – Resistance of soil
the fields and when the soil is wet the pump will automatically R2 – 470k Resistor
switch off, there by eradicate the need of manpower and conserve Vs – applied voltage
the time so the voltage[2] across the probe varies with moisture.
This voltage is read via at the A0 pin of Arduino. The analog
Keywords—Arduino, Irrigarion, water conservation value is converted by internal ADC of Arduino and we will get
I. INTRODUCTION a reading in-between 0 and 1023. The value 0 is for fully wet
condition and the value 1023 for fully dry condition. The
Irrigation is an artificial way of watering the soil for the program continuously compares the read value with set
proper growth of the plant. It[1] is mainly used in the dry areas reference value. Here the value we set while programming is
and the places where rainfall is less. Irrigation also helps to 400. When the read value goes above 400 pump will
suppress the weeds growing in the agricultural fields. The old automatically turn on by making the given pin high. We can
methods used for irrigation was manual irrigation using vary this value according to the quantity of water needed for
the soil for cultivation. This high value that is being read will
buckets and watering cans, by using sprinkler irrigation,
switche on transistor and the current will start flowing through
localized irrigation, drip irrigation etc. But by using these
the relay coil and it will get energized. Hence the pump gets
techniques we can’t predict the amount of water that is to be turned on. When moisture rises above the set value the given
watered or the sufficient quantity of water that a crop needs. pin will be made low and this inturn switches off transistor and
Due to this water logging will occur while using these
techniques to water the crops. So there is a need for the relay and pump gets switched off.
improvement on these existing techniques in order to conserve III SYSTEM DETAILS
water. So to prevent the water which is being wasted during
irrigation, an automatic plant irrigation system has been 1. Sensing circuit
developed. This works by sensing the moisture content of the The sensor used here is made up of two conducting
soil and decides whether the pump has to operate or not. The metal probes. It consists of a pair of electrodes to measure the
water supply needed for this irrigation can be from any source resistance of soil. Resistance of soil varies with moisture. So
like pond, stream, well etc. This system is not so expensive as these probes senses the moisture content of the soil. Smaller the
we compare to other systems and is time saving, as the works value of resistance, greater is the moisture content of the soil.
done by the system is automatic. 2. Pump
II. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION A 12 V dc motor is used with the pump. By activating the
Block diagram of the system is as in figure (1). This system motor driver circuit by the read value of the Arduino board
work by sensing the moisture content of the soil and decide with the set reference value, the pump will automatically turn
whether the pump has work or not and how much water on and turn off.
is

978-1-5090-6480-9/17/$31.00©2017 IEEE 384

 Proceedings of 2017 IEEE International Conference on Circuits and Systems (ICCS2017)

Probes
to Soil
climatic conditions. Resistance varies with moisture. As the
soil moisture sensor is analog, an ADC in Arduino is used to
convert into digital from which it will represent the resistance.
Dry soil will have the maximum resistance and wet soil will
Motor have the minimum resistance. After sensing the value it will
Arduino Driver DC
Sensor automatically decide whether the pump has to be turned on or
Circuit Circuit Motor turned-off. The pump will turn on as the current passes through
the relay coil and it will get energized and switches off as the
value reaches the threshold value.

V SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION
Power
The software used here is Arduino. It provides [3] a
Supply number of libraries to make the programming of the system so
simple. As our prototype, the controller AtMega 328 is
programmed which contains some resistance value ranging
Fig .1 shows the block diagram of automatic plant irrigation from 0 to 1023. 0 means fully wet condition and 1023 means
system. fully dry condition. A value is being set in between these two
value which will decide whether the pump has to be switched
on or off.
3. Relay VI NECESSITY OF THE PROJECT
It is used to switch on and switch off the pump according to Due to the increase in population, water scarcity occurs.
the water requirement of the soil Figure (3) illustrates [4] the per capita water use and per capita
4. Freewheeling diode water resource. From the above graph it is clear that as years
passes per capital water use increases and per capita water
Since the relay coil cannot change its current instantly, a resources falls. So it’s our duty to save the planet from water
diode is placed parallel to the relay coil. This diode will depletion and conserve a single drop of water that being wasted
provide a path for the current when the coil is switched off. unnecessary during irrigation. While doing this, water wastage
Otherwise, a sudden voltage spike will occur on the switch will be more by water logging. So an automatic plant irrigation
contacts or will destroy the switching transistors of the motor system is necessary to conserve water since the pump gets
driven circuit. turned on and off automatically after the use. One of the main
IV HARDWARE CONSTRUCTION objective of this system is to remove human control from fields
for watering the plants and it is time saving.
We did our project with less components since it is a
demonstration figure (2). As the area of irrigation increases we
can use more number of moisture sensors and temperature
sensors so that it will work according to the

180
160 160 160 160
140
150 Total Water Use
130
120
110 108
120 Per Capita Water
105
100 100 95 92 90
Resource
80 85
60 60 65
49
40 40
20 20
0
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Fig.2 total water use and per capita water resource.

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 Proceedings of 2017 IEEE International Conference on Circuits and Systems (ICCS2017)

VII ADVANCED PRACTICAL USES. techniques can also be used in houses. As the number of pots
increases, we have to use more number of sensors to it. We can
This system [5] can be developed, if there is a vast use of LCD display to view the final reading of the system. We
agricultural land. We should use a number of moisture sensor can also use a more efficient motor to pump the water in the
to the system and should include temperature sensor so that it agricultural fields more powerfully.
will work according to the climatic conditions. The efficiency
of this system is less because most of the components used in VIII ADVANTAGES
this system are made of plastic. The direct sun rays from the
sun towards the agricultural fields will destroy the system, This system [6] conserves water and eradicate the presence
since it is made of plastic. of workers for watering their agriculture fields completely,
since the pumping technology is automatic. Hence it is also a
So these circuits can be place in a specially build rooms or time saving device. Water logging in farms can be avoid by
on special coverings to prevent the direct sun rays falling on it. using this system since it is automatic. Also we can vary the
Hence the life span of the system can be increased. This availability of

Fig.3 Hardware setup of automatic plant irrigation system

X CONCLUSION
water delivered by knowing how much water a crop needs Automatic plant irrigation system has been designed and
to grow healthy. constructed. The miniature model of the system worked
according to specifications quite properly. This system
IX RESULT components are easily available and they work quite reliable.
This miniature model of automatic plant irrigation is By improving the irrigation efficiency in agricultural sector,
being tested in two different soils. One soil is wet and the other this industry become more competitive and sustainable. Also in
is dry. Only in the dry condition the pump will start working, dry areas, where there is no sufficient rainfall, proper irrigation
since the requirement of water is more for that soil for the is not possible. Hence by using this irrigation system by
proper growth of the crops and in wet soil the pump won’t monitoring the moisture content of soil are can meet the water
work since the soil does not need any water due to the presence requirements necessary for the field. To save effort of farmers,
of water in it hence this project will conserve water during the important considerations are water and time. In present
irrigation. condition, they need to wait until field is fully watered. This
restricts them to do other activities. This idea is not only meant
for farmers but also for watering the plants. In our present era,

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 Proceedings of 2017 IEEE International Conference on Circuits and Systems (ICCS2017)

the farmers are irrigating their crops at regular interval of

time. The techniques they use will consume more water by
creating water logging and results in water wastage. This
system that we designed will completely eliminate the stress of
manual labour.
Two types of soils have been tested and it will only work
when the soil condition is dry. For the future work, this project
can be implemented in large scale by using many number of
moist sensors and temperature sensors and by using a powerful
motor to pump the water more efficiently. This will result in
energy conservation and it is one of the great solution for
water depletion and water scarcity.
REFERENCES

[1] http//www.edgefx.in>automaticplant
[2] electronicsforu.com>hardware-diy>aut..
[3] Rafael Munoz Carpena and Michael D. Dukes, Automatic Irrigation
Based on Soil Moisture for Vegetable Crops, IFAS extension – 2005.
[4] www.instructables.com
[5] www.irrigation.org accessed on 2nd October 2015
[6] www.electronicshu
b>555 timer

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