Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Irrigation
Irrigation
fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/JSEN.2015.2435516, IEEE Sensors Journal
Sensors-12234-2015 1
1530-437X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/JSEN.2015.2435516, IEEE Sensors Journal
Sensors-12234-2015 2
1530-437X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/JSEN.2015.2435516, IEEE Sensors Journal
Sensors-12234-2015 3
Fig. 3. Images of the soil with different water contents. Fig. 4. Enhanced images of the soil with different water contents.
255, using Matlab R2014a (Fig. 3), between an image when the which is enabled by the low power consumption
soil is completely dry (Fig. 3.1) and other when is saturated with microcontroller PIC24FJ64GB004 (Microchip
300 ml of water (Fig. 3.6). These two images represent the Technologies, Chandler, AZ) that monitors continuously
limits of the dynamic range of the system, which depends of the the light-dark condition of the smartphone LCD, by means
physical characteristics of the soil: sand, loam, and clay of a voltage divider using a 5 MΩ photoresistor in series
percentages. Other images were acquired adding 60, 120, 180 with a 100KΩ resistor, turning on and off the LED
and 240 ml of water respectively (Fig. 3.2-3.5). The histograms respectively. All these electronics components are mounted
shown a slight difference between dry and wet pixels. In order on a designed PCB. The power supply consists of four series
to enhance their differences, a lightfield image of a super-white connected AA (Ni-MH, 1.2 V, and 2000-mAh) batteries
paper was taken with the same background of the illumination maintained by a 0.225 W photovoltaic panel MPT4.8-75
provided by the LED and subtracted from the set of images. The (PowerFilm Solar, Ames, IN). This provides full energy
resulting images and their histograms are shown (Fig. 4). Then, autonomy, the smartphone included.
the wet and dry pixels can be distinguished. The figures from 3) Chamber
4.2 to 4.5, shown two differentiated regions, where the value of The smartphone and the controlled illumination circuit are
around 200 is the limit between the wet and dry pixels. As can enclosed in the chamber, which is made of rigid PVC plastic
with a rectangular cuboid profile of 0.30 x 0.40 x 0.26 m (W
be seen the number of wet pixels is increased directly
x L x H) dimensions and weighing 2 kg. The front chamber
proportional to the added water. Therefore, the RWS is
face has a window of anti-reflective glass, which
calculated as the ratio between the number of wet and total
dimensions are 0.20 x 0.18 m (L x H) and located at 0.04 m
pixels. above the bottom edge and 0.03 m from the left edge.
B. Irrigation Sensor Components 4) Router Node
The wireless router node was developed by means of an
1) Smartphone XBee Wi-Fi radiomodem (Digi International, Eden Prairie,
To implement the irrigation sensor, the basic smartphone MN), linked with the Wi-Fi access point of the smartphone
ZTE-V791 was selected, which integrates an ARM Cortex- and an XBee-PRO S2 radiomodem to link the node to the
gateway. Both radiomodems are interfaced using a
A9 processor with 512 MB of RAM and 4 GB of internal
memory, runs at 1GHz on Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread with microcontroller to transfer a data packet that includes the
application programming interface level 10. A touchscreen router node identifier, the RWS percentage, date, and time.
of 3.5” is provided, with 320 x 480 pixels, with a standard The energy is provided with a similar power supply
Li-Ion battery of 1200 m Ah. Other features include employed for the illumination circuit.
GSM/GPRS and EDGE bands, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, C. Irrigation App
Hotspot, WAP 2.0 and a 3.0 megapixel rear-facing camera The App was programmed by means of the Android Studio
with 2048 x 1536 pixels. SDK, which allows the development of multiplatform
2) Illumination circuit
applications. In addition, the ZTE-V791 driver was installed to
The controlled illumination circuit is integrated by the high-
emulate and debug the App. The irrigation App was developed
brightness white LED-P3W200-120/41 (SiLed, DF,
in Java (Fig. 5). Initially, the algorithm requests for a user
Mexico) powered at 3.3 V through a voltage regulator
ADP122AUJZ-3.3-R7 (Analog Devices, Norwood, MA), defined time to start a periodically process. This loop,
1530-437X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/JSEN.2015.2435516, IEEE Sensors Journal
Sensors-12234-2015 4
n m
k H (i, j )
i 1 j 1
2) Pixel differentiation
The gray image I(i, j) is subtracted from a lightfield matrix
L(i, j), to enhance the image. The dark and light pixels that
correspond to the wet and dry ones is differentiated, comparing
them to an established ε limit:
1 if [ I i, j Li, j ]
H i, j
0 if [ I i, j Li, j ] Fig. 7. Chamber, router node and gateway location in the crop field.
1530-437X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/JSEN.2015.2435516, IEEE Sensors Journal
Sensors-12234-2015 5
100
90
80
70
50
40
30
20
10
0
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 01 02 03 04 05
Time (day)
Fig. 10. RWS fluctuation and irrigation events along several days.
50
1530-437X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/JSEN.2015.2435516, IEEE Sensors Journal
Sensors-12234-2015 6
irrigation using a soil imaging process. Due to rapid growth of [4] J. Lee, .B. A. Reyes, D. D. McManus, O. Mathias, and K. H. Chon, "Atrial
Fibrillation Detection Using an iPhone 4S," IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng.,
smartphone appliances at affordable prices, this App
vol. 60, no. 1, pp. 203-206, Jan. 2013.
represented a simple and practical implementation. The sensor [5] E. Koukoumidis, M. Martonosi, and P. Li-Shiuan, "Leveraging
installation in the field can be done simultaneously with the Smartphone Cameras for Collaborative Road Advisories," IEEE Trans.
preparation of the cultivation beds and irrigation tubes, so there Mobile Comput., vol. 11, no. 5, pp. 707-723, May 2012.
[6] C. Qin, X. Bao, R. R. Choudhury, and S. Nelakuditi, "TagSense:
is no significant additional labor, nevertheless compared with
Leveraging Smartphones for Automatic Image Tagging," IEEE Trans.
traditional sensors, the installation in the field requires more Mobile Comput., vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 61-74, Jan. 2014.
effort and time. [7] R. J. Lehmann, R. Reiche, and G. Schiefer, “Future internet and the agri-
food sector: State-of-the-art in literature and research,” Comput. Electron.
The irrigation sensor has an inherent advantage over other kind Agric., vol. 89, pp. 158–174, Nov. 2012.
of soil moisture sensors for irrigation purposes. The outcome of [8] M. Li, J. P. Qian, X. T. Yang, C. H. Sun, and Z. T. Ji, “A PDA-based
others depend of soil characteristics like: density, compaction, record-keeping and decision-support system for traceability in cucumber
production,” Comput. Electron. Agric., vol. 70, no. 1, pp. 69-77, 2010.
gravimetry or mixture of their components among others. The [9] N.J. Car, E.W. Christen, J.W. Hornbuckle, and G.A. Moore, “Using a
irrigation sensor is of non-contact type, requiring only an in situ mobile phone Short Messaging Service (SMS) for irrigation scheduling
calibration to acquire the dynamic range for any soil type. This in Australia – Farmers’ participation and utility evaluation,” Comput.
is performed using a dry soil image and another water saturated. Electron. Agric., vol. 84, pp. 132-143, June 2012.
[10] F. Sallabi, M. Fadel, A. Hussein, A. Jaffar, and H. E. Khatib, “Design and
This procedure may represent a disadvantage respect to other implementation of an electronic mobile poultry production documentation
kind of sensors. system,” Comput. Electron. Agric., vol. 76, no. 1, pp. 28-37, 2011.
[11] M. Arroqui, C. Mateos, C. Machado, and A. Zunino, “RESTful Web
The irrigation sensor is a low power consumption standalone Services improve the efficiency of data transfer of a whole-farm simulator
device that can be maintained operative with a small solar panel accessed by Android smartphones,” Comput. Electron. Agric., vol. 87, pp.
and a rechargeable batteries in order to operate for the whole 14-18, Sept. 2012.
[12] J. A. Delgado, K. Kowalski, and C. Tebbe, “The first Nitrogen Index app
cultivation period, without the usage of cables or external wired for mobile devices: Using portable technology for smart agricultural
connections. management,” Comput. Electron. Agric., vol. 91, pp. 121-123, Feb. 2013.
[13] C. R. Cunha, E. Peres, R. Morais, A. A. Oliveira, S. G. Matos, M. A.
The incorporation of a Wi-Fi router node, besides the range Fernandes, P. J. S. G. Ferreira, and M. J. C. S. Reis, “The use of mobile
increase of the LAN from the smartphone, allows to connect devices with multi-tag technologies for an overall contextualized vineyard
other Wi-Fi devices, such as other sensors to increase the management,” Comput. Electron. Agric., vol. 73, no. 2, pp. 154-164,
sampling points in the field and by means of the XBee-PRO S2 2010.
[14] A. Gong, X. Wub, Z. Qiub, and Y. Heb, “A handheld device for leaf area
radiomodem, the range can be extended up to 1.6 km. measurement,” Comput. Electron. Agric., vol. 98, pp. 74–80, Oct. 2013.
[15] R. Confalonieri, M. Foi, R. Casa, S. Aquaro, E. Tona, M. Peterle, A.
The sensor can be used creating networks for large fields or for Boldini, G. De Carli, A. Ferrari, G. Finotto, T. Guarneri, V. Manzoni, E.
uneven cultivation terrains, in such a way that several places Movedi, A. Nisoli, L. Paleari, I. Radici, M. Suardi, D. Veronesi, S.
have to be monitored for different RWS values. Also if needed Bregaglio, G. Cappelli, M.E. Chiodini, P. Dominoni, C. Francone, N.
there are other communication capabilities such as Bluetooth or Frasso, T. Stella, and M. Acutis, “Development of an app for estimating
leaf area index using a smartphone. Trueness and precision determination
directly through a SIM card via SMS linked directly to a URL and comparison with other indirect methods,” Comput. Electron. Agric.,
site or other smartphone, integrating several versatile possible vol. 96, pp. 67-74, Aug. 2013.
applications. If a gateway is not required, the irrigation sensor [16] F. G. Montoya, J. Gómez, A. Cama, A. Zapata-Sierra, F. Martínez, J. L.
can be used alone to trigger remotely an irrigation pump. De La Cruz, and F. Manzano-Agugliaro, “A monitoring system for
intensive agriculture based on mesh networks and the android system,”
Comput. Electron. Agric., vol. 99, pp. 14–20, Nov. 2013.
[17] L. Gómez-Robledo, N. López-Ruiz, M. Melgosa, A. J. Palma, L. F.
Capitán-Vallvey, and M. Sánchez-Marañón, “Using the mobile phone as
ACKNOWLEDGMENT Munsell soil-colour sensor: An experimente under controlled illumination
conditions,” Comput. Electron. Agric., vol. 99, pp. 200–208, Nov. 2013.
We are very grateful to Mr. Pedro Luna, Mr. Jorge Cobos,
[18] S. Sumriddetchkajorn, A. Somboonkaew, and S. Chanhorm, “Mobile
and Mr. Alfonso Alvarez for their support in the preparation of device-based digital microscopy for education, healthcare, and
the field, the harvest and the construction of the chamber and agriculture,” Electrical Engineering/Electronics, Computer,
router node, with all the electronic components attached. Telecommunications and Information Technology (ECTI-CON), 2012
9th International Conference on, pp. 14–20, 16-18 May 2012.
[19] J. Gutiérrez, J. F. Villa-Medina, A. Nieto-Garibay, and M. A. Porta-
Gándara,”Automated Irrigation System Using a Wireless Sensor Network
REFERENCES and GPRS Module," IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas., vol. 63, no. 1, pp. 166-
176, Jan. 2014.
[20] P. Baronti, P. Pillai, V. W. C. Chook, S. Chessa, A. Gotta, and Y. F. Hu,
[1] J. Broeders, D. Croux, M. Peeters, T. Beyens, S. Duchateau, T. J. Cleij, “Wireless sensor networks: A survey on the state of the art and the
P. Wagner, R. Thoelen, and W. De Ceuninck, “Mobile Application for 802.15.4 and ZigBee standards,” Comput. Commun., vol. 30, no. 7,
Impedance-Based Biomimetic Sensor Readout,” IEEE Sensors J., vol. 13, pp.1655–1695, May 2007.
no. 7, pp. 2659-2665, July 2013. [21] Studio encoding parameters of digital television for standard 4:3 and wide
[2] B. G. Lee and W. Y. Chung, "Driver Alertness Monitoring Using Fusion screen 16:9 aspect ratios, BT.601-7 (03/11), 2011.
of Facial Features and Bio-Signals," IEEE Sensors J., vol. 12, no. 7, pp.
2416-2422, July 2012.
[3] Y. Ishigaki, Y. Matsumoto, R. Ichimiya, and K. Tanaka, "Development
of Mobile Radiation Monitoring System Utilizing Smartphone and Its
Field Tests in Fukushima," IEEE Sensors J., vol. 13, no. 10, pp. 3520-
3526, Oct. 2013.
1530-437X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/JSEN.2015.2435516, IEEE Sensors Journal
Sensors-12234-2015 7
1530-437X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.