Abstract

Nowadays, the constraint of rain water and scarcity of water in reservoir have been of increase. Also poor conservation mechanism of water affects agribusiness players and small organic farmers’ production rate. The advancements in wireless sensor network help to sense several factors like soil moisture, temperature and humidity. Thereby deploying sensors in agriculture fields to monitor how we can conserve water for irrigation and increase yield.

This project briefly explains the IoT Based Automatic Irrigation system using Nodemcu 8266. Whenever the sensor detects a low quantity of moisture in the soil, the motor turns on automatically. Hence it will automatically irrigate the field. Once the soil becomes wet, the motor turns off. In order to optimize the use of water, mechanism like this need to be developed water conversation is the need of the hour. Also, automation in agricultural system is a necessity to optimize water usage, reduce water wastage, and to implement modern technology in agriculture systems.

Soil moisture sensor is a novel device which senses the moisture content in the soil and with suitable mechanism allows water to be irrigated depending on the moisture level of the soil. This allows flow of water or stoppage of water to the plants by using an automated irrigation system. You can monitor all this happening remotely via Thingspeak Server online from any part of the world.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.Background and context of study

Over the past 50yrs, the population of Cameroon grew substantially from 6.87million to 27 million persons rising at an increase annual rate that reached a maximum of 3.23%. This continuous increase in population is proportional to the continuous increase in food demand and thus requiring improvement in food production technology. Also with the coming of technology in the Agricultural sectors gave a thumb up to improve the yield in the Agriculture.

From massive agribusiness players to small organic farmers, growers all over the world are using the Internet of things to reduce consumption of water and fertilizers, reduce waste and improve the quality or yield of products. Examples range from monitoring the changes in temperature, humidity and Pressure levels as perishable goods move from field to warehouse or store in other to extend their shelf life and also eliminate waste. Another example is tracking microclimates across cropland. Many growers in some parts of the world, recent history search for ways to use less water and to monitor their farmlands.

Tech providers are helping with tools such as drones, robot, soil sensors which help to measure real-time conditions. According to The Nature Conservancy such precision agriculture can enable farmers to cut water and fertilizer use to 40% without reducing yields. The improvement of the irrigation efficiency in agricultural sector will help the industry becomes more competitive and sustainable. In the other hand, Proper irrigation can be done in dry areas where there is not sufficient rainfall.

Thus, this irrigation system is helpful to moisture content in the soil and to know the amount of water necessary for our crops. Another important note of this project is its ability to save effort and time of farmers and most especially the ability to remotely monitor the plant in any part of the world. In present condition, farmers need to wait until the field is fully watered. This restricts them to do other activities. This idea is not limited only to farmers but to gardeners, people that rear animals as the knowledge of the amount of water is of great need. In our present era, the farmers are irrigating their crops at regular interval of time.

The techniques they use will consume more water by creating water logging and resulting to water wastage. The benefits of the system we have design are so many of which the main ones are reduction of labor, timely irrigation (plants being watered when needed). The management of higher flow rate reduces runoff of water compared to manual checking, reduction of transportation cost most especially vehicles to check irrigation.

Smart Irrigation As mentioned earlier, the irrigation system is another application of automation system. Some home automation includes smart irrigation system as a part of their system especially for a home that has lawn or garden. Regardless of it uses, smart irrigation system becomes important nowadays to ensure the optimize use of water especially in the field of agriculture in which water resources are scarce (Angelopoulos, Nikoletseas, & Theofanopoulos, 2011).

Smart irrigation system can be defined as an irrigation system that helps in water saving by monitoring and using information about site condition (such as soil moisture, rain, wind and more) and applying those factor to apply the right amount of water (Dukes, n.d). The Environmental Protection Agency reported that the using of “smart” irrigation system controller to replace the traditional clock timer can help to save of average 8800 gallons of water annually.

It is worth noting that Agriculture is the backbone of most developing countries with 85% of available fresh water resources worldwide and this continuous to be the dominant in water management. Hence the method is making agriculture smart using automation and IoT technologies. Internet of Things (IoT) enables various applications of crop growth monitoring and selection, automatic irrigation decision support, etc. We proposed ESP8266 IoT Automatic irrigation system to modernize and improve the productivity of the crop.

This post explains how to make IoT Automatic Irrigation System using some simple sensors that are available in the market. We will use Capacitive Soil Moisture Sensor to measure moisture content present in the soil. Similarly to measure Air Temperature and Humidity, we prefer DHT11 Humidity Temperature Sensor.

Using a 5V Power relay we will control the Water Pump. Whenever the sensor detects a low quantity of moisture in the soil, the motor turns on automatically and will automatically irrigate the field. Once the soil becomes wet, the motor turns off. You can monitor all this happening remotely via Thingspeak Server online from any part of the world.

2. Problem Statement

The number of people dying of hunger and malnutrition per day as estimated is 7750 – 15345 people according to Oxfam report of 2021. Access of food seems difficult as prices and quantity of food is beyond the capability of the lower and middle class. Manual irrigation induced crops failure and is a major cause of crop loss every year, and has been of great increase nowadays of water crisis.

Also increases the rate of water pollution due to mismanagement of excess water which infiltrates into streams and leads to water pollution. Farming is an activity that needs supervision from the human. Some people enjoy farming as their hobby. However, it becomes a problem for people to monitor their farmlands during their absence.

They have to seek help from their neighbor or relative to take care of their farms when they are away from home (for example: going for vacation) and this is a very tedious process. Furthermore, working people does not have time to monitor their farms daily. The system also is very strenuous and time consuming as for example farmers cultivating vegetables during the dry season requires them to be on the field daily to water the crops. Demand has been of great increase and thus the need for farmers to increase product efficiency, by rapidly advancing Technologies.

Automation in agricultural systems is a necessity to optimize water usage, reduce water wastage, and to implement modern technology in agriculture systems. Farmers need large scale manpower to irrigate large lands simultaneously. However with help of Automatic Plant Irrigation System (APIS), they can meet up to this demand and improve on the yield thereby increasing scale of production.

My project (IoT based smart and automatic agricultural irrigation system) will help not only to increase the productivity in the agricultural sectors but to remotely monitor the crops on the fields in any part of the world we may find ourselves, with the ability of the system to be control from a distance will help solve problems encountered by manual watering of plants which is a big challenge when the farmers could be out of town. It will also go a long way to reduce or limit some costs inquire from transportation or to pay workers.

3. Objectives of the study

Its divided into two types; General and Specific objectives.

3.1 General Objective:

The general objective is to build a IoT based Smart agriculture and Automatic Irrigation System that solves problems related to irrigation and monitoring our farmland in our absences, such as controlling and increasing the efficient use of water and reducing the wastage of water during irrigation. Increase the agricultural production by regulating the amount of water and minimizing manual interventions in watering operations while increasing the water speed.

3.2 Specific Objectives

• Create a Plant communicator device based on NodeMCU ESP8266, Capacitive soil moisture sensor, DHT11 Temperature and Humidity sensor.
• Use Arduino IDE for coding device and its circuit and also for the execution of operation.
• Use Thingspeak online server to aggregate, analyze live data streams in the cloud and instant visualizations of data posted by your devices to ThingSpeak.
• Propose research for ESP8266 Board device and its circuit.
• Proper circuit design for the project.
• Proper testing and debugging of the device configuration.
• Create proper prototype of Plant Communication.
• Project Survey conduction.
• Provision of Moisture, Temperature and Humidity Value.
• Research on Similar systems.