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DESIGN AND CALIBRATION OF SEMI-AUTOMATED IRRIGATION SYSTEM

BASED ON SOIL MOISTURE SENSOR

Conference Paper · May 2016

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 AES2016-P35
DESIGN AND CALIBRATION OF SEMI-AUTOMATED IRRIGATION SYSTEM
BASED ON SOIL MOISTURE SENSOR

*AAMIR SHAKOOR, ZAHID MEHMOOD KHAN, MEHMOOD AHMAD,

M. ABDUL WAJID

Department of Agricultural Engineering, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan

*Email: aamirskr@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

In crop production a healthy water balance is essential for high quality yields. Under-watered
crops suffer from nutrient deficiencies while over-watered plants are more susceptible to
diseases pressure and can in some cases lead to root death through suffocation. Also over-
watered plants are not able to withstand dry spells during dry season. The aim of this project
is to use control engineering principles and concepts to provide a microcontroller based
irrigation system. The system will help in saving money and water and at the same time
increasing crops production. The automated irrigation system is controlled using ATmega328
micro controller based on arduino platform. The system is programmed via the
microcontroller to give interrupt signal to the irrigation system (drip, sprinkler, ditch etc)
depending on the soil moisture levels. The soil moisture/humidity levels are checked using
soil moisture sensor. Whenever there is a change in moisture/humidity in the soil this sensor
senses the change and gives an interrupt signal to the micro-controller and thus the watering
system is activated or deactivated.
Keywords: soil moisture sensor, irrigation, microcontroller, arduino

INTRODUCTION

Water has played a significant role in our economic development and is an essential necessity
for about half of the workforce related to agriculture in Pakistan (Chatha et al., 2015). About
68% of the rural population depends on agriculture and it provides livelihood for over 43.5
percent of the workforce making agriculture the single largest sector of Pakistan’s economy.
Within the agricultural sector, the contribution from crop production and livestock is about 52
and 44 percent respectively (ESP, 2015; Ghani et al., 2013). Adoption of conservation
technologies in the field of agriculture, no doubt, should be the first step towards
management of resources. In the water sector, water conservation is more important due to
the inefficient use irrigation resources in Pakistan compared to other agrarian countries
(Shakoor et al., 2012). Despite the overall shortages, the conservation of water in irrigation
could be used for expansion of agriculture and to other sectors. Increasing irrigation
efficiency, therefore, will result in improved crop yield and overall agricultural productivity
as well as less water use. The efficiency of flood irrigation system is about 50%, so
adaptation of new technologies could increase its efficiency along with an increase in yield
(Giovanni et al., 2014; Goumopoulos et al., 2014).
Thus, there is dire need to provide more facility in irrigation system using sensor network.
Actually, the water moisture level was measured by using the moisture sensor and
accordingly control the motor. The objectives of this project is to design and calibrate a
sensor based irrigation system thereby saving time & power for the farmer.
MATERIALS AND METHODS

Soil Moisture Sensor

A sensor is a device that detects and measures a physical quantity from the environment and
converts it into an electronic signal (Seyfried and Murdock, 2004; Mahan et al., 2010) The
physical quantity could be moisture, temperature, motion, light or any other physical
phenomenon. The output of the sensors is usually charge, current or voltage. Of interest in
this paper is the soil moisture sensor (Devika et al. 2014). A soil moisture sensor is a device
that measures the volumetric water content (θv) of soil, mathematically θv, is given as
follows;
θv = As θw Eq. (1)
𝑾𝒘 −𝑾𝒅
θw = 𝑾 100
𝒅
Where, θv is soil moisture content on a dry vol. basis percent; As is apparent specific gravity
of soil; θw is soil moisture content on a dry weight basis percent; Ww is wet weight and Wd
dry weight.

Components of Model
In this research, an applied working sensor based irrigation system model was designed and
calibrated in Irrigation laboratory, Department of Agricultural Engineering, Bahauddin
Zakarira University, Multan. In this model, YL-69 soil moisture was used along with YL-69
PCB, P3362 Electronic potentiometer and LM 393 Comparator, shown in Figure 1.

(a) (b) (c) (d)

Figure 1: Components of soil moisture sensor a) YL-69 Sensor b) YL-69 PCB c) P3362
Electronic potentiometer d) LM 393 Comparator

YL-69 Moisture Sensor

This is an electrical resistance sensor, made up of two electrodes. This soil moisture sensor
reads the moisture content around it. A current is passed across the electrodes through the soil
and the resistance to the current in the soil determines the soil moisture. If the soil has more
water resistance will be low and thus more current will pass through.

Table 1: Specifications of the YL-69 soil moisture sensor

Vcc power supply 3.3V or 5V
Current 35mA
Signal output voltage 0-4.2V
Digital Outputs 0 or 1
Analog Resistance (Ω)
Panel Dimension 3.0cm by 1.6cm
Probe Dimension 6.0cm by 3.0cm
GND Connected to ground
On the other hand when the soil moisture is low the sensor module outputs a high level of
resistance (Fisher and Gould, 2012; Colin et al., 2009).
This sensor has both digital and analogue outputs. Digital output is simple to use but is not as
accurate as the analogue output. The specifications of the YL-69 soil moisture sensor are
given in Table 1. The sensor comes with a small PCB board fitted with LM393 comparator
chip and a digital potentiometer, Shown in Figure 1(b).

Potentiometer
A potentiometer is basically a variable resistor. Like analog potentiometers, digital
potentiometers are used to scale or adjust resistance of a circuit (Fisher and Gould, 2012).
Digital potentiometers are also known as a digital pot or digipot. Digipots are available as
integrated circuits (ICs). On the soil moisture sensor the digital potentiometer acts as a low
resolution digital to analog convertor (DAC) thus adjusting it varies the sensitivity of the
sensor.

LM393 comparator
A compactor is an electronic device that compares two voltages or currents and gives a
digital signal as the output. It indicates which of the two compared quantities is large. A
comparator has a least two input pins and one output pin. Operational amplifier operating in
open loop configuration and without negative feedback can be used as a simple comparator.
One of the most commonly used comparators is LM393. It is available as an IC. LM393 finds
application in limit comparators, simple ADC, time delay generators and square wave
generators among others. The capability of LM393 to interface with low power drain is an
advantage over other types of comparators.

Micro controller-Arduino UNO

The Arduino Uno is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega328 (Figure 2). It has 14
digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, a 16
MHz ceramic resonator, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, and a reset button.
It contains everything needed to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to a computer
with a USB cable or power it with an AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started. The Uno
differs from all preceding boards in that it does not use the FTDI USB-to-serial driver chip.
Instead, it features the Atmega16U2 (Atmega8U2 up to version R2) programmed as a USB-
to-serial converter (Arduino, 2015).

Figure 2: Micro controller-Arduino Uno board

The Arduino Uno can be powered via the USB connection or with an external power supply.
The power source is selected automatically (Koenka et al. 2014; Sanchez and haro, 2011).
External (non-USB) power can come either from an AC-to-DC adapter (wall-wart) or battery.
The adapter can be connected by plugging a 2.1mm center-positive plug into the board's
power jack.

Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)

Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) was used to display the results of the soil moisture sensor.
LCD screen is an electronic display module. An LCD has a wide range of applications in
electronics. The most basic and commonly used LCD in circuits is the 16x4 display. This
LCD has Command and Data registers. The command register stores command instructions
given to the LCD while the Data register stores the data to be displayed by the LCD.

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

Hardware Design
ATMega328 microcontroller on arduino platform was selected the control unit of the
microcontroller. Arduino Uno was selected from the expansive arduino family. Arduino Uno
has a total of 20 inputs pins of which 14 are digital and 6 are analog inputs. The digital pins
can be used as either inputs or outputs and also 6 of the 14 pins can be utilized as PMW. The
board has a 16 MHz ceramic resonator, a USB connection and a power jack. YL-69 soil
moisture sensor was interfaced to the arduino through a digital a PCB drive. The PCB drive
has a digital potentiometer and a LM393 comparator. The LM393 comparator is used to
compare the voltages across the sensor probes and the set Vcc voltage. The digipot is used to
alter the sensitivity of the sensor when connected in digital mode.

Software Design
To be able to interpret the different states of the soil as prompted by the soil sensor the
microcontroller was programmed. The arduino integrated development environment (IDE)
was used. The idea is based on C++ and thus can be extended using C++ libraries. Arduino
programs (sketches) are cross platform, Simple, clear and at the same time flexible for
advanced programmers.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The raw data collected from the gravimetric method and soil moisture sensor was recorded as
shown in Table 2.

Table 2: Soil moisture and sensor reading

Sample Wet weight Dry weight Moisture Moisture Sensor reading
No. (Kg) (Kg) (% by Weight) (% by Vol)
1 0.39 0.364 7.14 10.00 147
2 0.41 0.372 10.22 14.30 113
3 0.574 0.502 14.34 20.08 78
4 0.464 0.388 19.59 27.42 50
5 0.518 0.43 20.47 28.65 30

The wet soil weight was measured put soil sample in the oven for 24 hours at 105 oC and then
dry weight was calculated. The moisture content percent by weight and volume was
calculated using equation 1. The data obtained from the sensor reading and recorded in Table
2 was used to plot a graph of Soil water content against sensor reading.
35

30

25
Soil moisture (% Vol)

20

15

10 y = -0.1699x + 34.295
R² = 0.9811
5

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160

Sensor values (Ohms)

Figure 4: Soil moisture vs sensor values

The soil moisture sensor-YL69 used in this model is a resistance sensor type. Its output is the
resistance in the soil between the two probes. The obtained graph is an exponential one. The
value of the soil resistance decreases with increase in water content to a certain point. To
come up with the results the five soil samples were carried out from the field. The weight of
the samples were different at different moisture levels. The output values of the soil moisture
were recorded in each soil sample. It was found that the value of soil sensor at dry soil and
water was 1021 and 2 respectively. Graph shows that the higher moisture content soil
(28.65%) gave output of 30 and lower moisture content (10%) gave output of 147. This is
because that the wet soil resist less than dry.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

A sensor based system to monitor moisture levels in the soil was designed and calibrated. The
system was used to switch on/off the watering system/pump manually according to set soil
moisture levels. The control unit the prototype was implemented using a microcontroller on
arduino platform while the sensing bit was implemented using a SMS YL-69. It is
recommended that this low cost sensor based irrigation should be used to improve the
effectiveness and efficiency of irrigation system after a soil specific calibration. Furthermore,
Integrating GSM technology can be used, such that whenever the water pump switches
ON/OFF, an SMS is sent to the concerned person regarding the status of the pump.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors acknowledged the financial support from Department of Agricultural

Engineering, BZU, Multan.

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