Design of a Fuzzy-based Automated Organic

Irrigation System for Smart Farm

John R. Dela Cruz, Jo-Ann V. Magsumbol, Elmer P. Dadios,
Renann G. Baldovino, Francisco B. Culibrina, Laurence A. Gan Lim
Gokongwei College of Engineering, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines
john_delacruz@dlsu.edu.ph

Abstract – Irrigation system plays a very important role in

organic farming. It provides the necessary water requirement for
the whole farm. But it is necessary for the irrigation system to be
efficient, especially in providing the optimal distribution of
available water resources. Also, since the water from an
irrigation system will come from an underground reservoir, it
requires electrical water pump to collect water. In a smart farm,
proper allocation of resources is required. In order to control the
usage of water resources for irrigation, this paper proposes the
design of an automated organic irrigation system in controlling
and properly allocating the available water resources for the
irrigation system and available electricity for the use of the
pump. Experiments through MATLAB simulation were done
using a proposed system to achieve the optimum water and
electrical resource distribution.
Keywords – Organic Irrigation System, Fuzzy Logic, Smart
Farm, Automation, Power Management
I. INTRODUCTION
Agriculture is one of the vital sectors of a country’s
economy. It involves the systematic raising of useful plants
and livestock. [1] It is the backbone of food security in a
country. But the agricultural process itself requires a lot of
investment to have a good yield, especially in preventing and
mitigating effects of changing climatic conditions.
Agricultural sustainability, which refers to the proper
management of agricultural resources in satisfying the human
necessities while maintaining the environmental quality and
conserving natural resources [2], has been the issue of current
agricultural techniques being used in conventional farming.
Organic agriculture or organic farming [3] was introduced in
order to contribute to the improvement of sustainability,
particularly in the three dimensions as seen in Fig. 1.
Water, as considered as the agriculture’s bloodline, plays
a major role in maintaining the sustainability of an organic
farm. Farms need water to sustain the soil moisture needed to
cultivate crops. To answer this problem, the irrigation system
was invented to provide water for farms that are too far from
natural bodies of waters like rivers, lakes, etc. Through the
continuous use of irrigation systems, it has been found out that
too much water may cause problems depending on the soil
texture and too little water may cause the unsuitable growth of
crops. [4]
Fig. 1. The three dimensions of agricultural sustainability. [2]
Automated irrigation systems are not new. But the
problem of efficiently allocating water resources to irrigate
plants with just the right amount of water necessary for it still
exists. [4] In some farms, especially those located in elevated
areas far from rivers or lakes, underground water reservoirs
are being utilized. But the problem of transporting it from
underground to the surface requires the use of water pumps.
Electric pumps are used and require a large amount of current
and power. In a smart farm, independent power sources are
used like solar panel systems, etc. Therefore, proper allocation
of power resources will become a problem. [5] This problem
is the main goal of precision agriculture solutions, which is to
improve the farming productivity by defining the farming
needs and acting according to the inferences from experiences
of farming and agriculture experts. [6][7]
Conventional irrigation systems use inorganic or synthetic
fertilizers such as nitrogen and phosphorous compounds that
are being mixed with the irrigation waters. However, too
much application of this fertilizers may cause leachates if not
fully solubilize due to water shortage. On the other hand,
organic irrigation systems use organic and bio-organic
fertilizers such as animal manure which is less hazardous and
cost-effective. [8]
In this paper, the researchers propose the design of an
automated organic irrigation systems for a smart farm, from
gathering water in the reservoir up to the irrigation of the farm
through the implementation of fuzzy logic control, including
the automation of turning on the electric pump through the

978-1-5386-0912-5/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE

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 power management system based on the current situation of
the reservoir and the water storage.

II. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

The proposed Smart Farm Automated Organic Irrigation

System (SFAOIS) aims to optimize the amount of water
resources in the smart farm. This system, as seen in Fig. 2, is
subdivided into four subsystems: Water Tank Monitoring and
Control Subsystem (WTMCS), Fish Pond Monitoring and
Control Subsystem (FPMCS), Open Irrigation Control
Subsystem (OICS), and Chamber Irrigation Control
Subsystem (CICS). Each subsystem represents the control of Figure 4. Fish Pond Monitoring and Control Subsystem (FPMCS) Block
the vital parts of an irrigation system: water source, water Diagram)
storage, piping, sensors, and actuators. The transmission of
data and control of the actuators in the SFAIS will be through
Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) via LoRa from the
field to the control room. [9][10]

Fig. 2. Smart Farm Automated Organic Irrigation System

Fig. 5. Open Irrigation Control Subsystem (OICS) Typical Block Diagram

The purpose of the WTMCS is to monitor and control the
farm’s main water storage tank and to send the priority level
to the power management system that will turn on the motor
pump that will transfer the water to the water tank from the
underground reservoir. [10] The typical block diagram of the
WTMCS can be seen in Fig. 3.
The CICS, responsible for the irrigation of the controlled
(experimental) environment of the smart farm, has the role of
measuring and monitoring the soil moisture and temperature
of the chamber and limiting the water flow entering the
chamber by controlling the valves for the drip line and
sprinkler or humidifier. Fig. 6 shows the block diagram of the
CICS.

Figure 3. Water Tank Monitoring and Control Subsystem (WTMCS) Typical

Block Diagram

The FPMCS monitors the water level and pH level of the

fish pond. The fish pond was placed at the interface between
the water storages and the irrigable area. This will also be one
of the sources of nutrients for the plants since the fish manure
will be considered as a fertilizer. [11] The block diagram of
the FPMCS is shown in Fig. 4.
The purpose of the OICS, which is a multiple identical
sensor-actuator groups located at each assigned open zones in
the smart farm, is to measure and monitor the soil moisture of
each open zones and to limit the water flow to each through
controlling the zone valves. The typical block diagram of the
OICS can be seen in Fig. 5.
Fig. 6. Open Irrigation Control Subsystem (OICS) Typical Block Diagram
The main control of each of the subsystems is a fuzzy
logic control (FLC), which was introduced by Lotfi Zadeh in
1965. In this control, a single-valued input or crisp input is
mapped into a fuzzy set or fuzzy input, which is typically
expressed in terms of a linguistic variable. The fuzzy inputs
will then be processed by an inference engine, where there is a
set of linguistic rules, to yield fuzzy outputs. The
defuzzification or the reverse process of fuzzification will take
place to yield the crisp output. [12][13]

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 Fig. 7 shows the control process diagram of the WTMCS.
The level (L) and the change in level (DL) in the water tank
are set as the input of the controller, wherein the profile or the
specifications of the water tank was considered. The control
will yield the priority level (PRIO) of the power management
system to turn on or off the motor. Table I shows the fuzzy
associative memory (FAM) or the summary of linguistic rules
Figure 10. Membership Function for Priority Level (PRIO) of WTMCS FLC
of the FLC for the WTMCS, while Figs. 8 to 10 shows the
membership functions of its inputs and output.
Fig. 11 shows the control process diagram of the FPMCS.
The water level (L) and the change in water level (DL) in the
fish pond will be measured and will be processed by the
FPMCS control by fuzzifying these inputs, considering the
specifications for the said fish pond. The output of the control
will be the position of the control valve (VP) going to the
main irrigation pipe. Table II shows the FAM of the FPMCS
FLC and Figs. 12 to 14 shows the membership functions of its
inputs and output.
Fig. 7. WTMCS Control Process Diagram

TABLE I
FAM MATRIX FOR WTMCS FLC

DL
Z L H
E MP HP HP
L

N MP MP HP Fig. 11. FPMCS Control Process Diagram

F LP LP MP
TABLE II
FAM MATRIX FOR FPMCS FLC
Legend:
For L E – Empty For DL Z – Zero
DL
N – Normal L – Low
F – Full H – High L M H
For PRIO LP – Low Priority L C C C
L

MP – Medium Priority N O O C
HP – High Priority H O O C

Legend:
For L L – Low For DL L – Low
N – Normal M – Medium
H – High H – High
For VP C – Close
O – Open

Figure 8. Membership Function for Water Tank Level (L) of WTMCS FLC

Figure 12. Membership Function for Fish Pond Level (L) of FPMCS FLC

Figure 9. Membership Function for Change in Water Tank Level (DL) of

WTMCS FLC

Figure 13. Membership Function for Change in Fish Pond Level (DL) of
FPMCS FLC

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 Figure 16. Membership Function for Soil Moisture (SM) of OICS FLC

Figure 14. Membership Function for control valve position (VP) of FPMCS
FLC

Fig. 15 shows the control process diagram of the OICS.

The soil moisture (SM) and change in soil moisture (DSM) on
the open plots will be measured and will serve as the input of
the FLC for the OICS, based on the soil and plant profile.
These will be fuzzified, processed, and defuzzified to yield the
time the control valve will open (VP) for each plot. The FLC
to be used is a Takagi-Sugeno Fuzzy Inference, wherein the
output membership function is linear [14]. Table III shows the
FAM of the OICS FLC and Figs. 16-17 shows the
membership function of its inputs. The output of the system
will be computed based on the weighted average of all
outputs, as seen in Equation (1).
Figure 17. Membership Function for Change in Soil Moisture (DSM) of OICS
FLC
Fig. 18 shows the control process diagram of the CICS.
There will be six (6) inputs for the CICS control – soil
moisture (SM), temperature (T), humidity (H), and their
respective changes (DSM, DT, and DH). These inputs will be
used to determine the length of time the drip line valve (VP1)
and the sprinkler or humidifier line valve (VP2).

(1)

Fig. 18. CICS Control Process Diagram

Fig. 15. OICS Control Process Diagram The CICS control used multiple FLC to minimize the
memory consumption of the computer and to serve as a good
TABLE III filter to the noise on the input data of each FLC [13]. Fig. 19
FAM MATRIX FOR OICS FLC shows the different FLC used in the CICS. FLC1 controls the
drip line valve based on the values of SM and DSM, which is
DSM the same with OICS FLC. FLC2, FLC3, and FLC4 control the
Z S M L sprinkler or humidifier line valve based on the values of T,
VL N N L VL DT, H, and DH.
L S N N L
SM

SM DSM T DT H DH
N S S N N
H VS S S N
CICS FLC 2 CICS FLC 3
Legend:
For SM VL – Very Low For DSM Z – Zero CICS FLC 1

L – Low S – Small CICS FLC 4

N – Normal M – Medium
H – High L – Large
For VP VL – Very Long (25 s) Drip Line Valve Sprinkler Valve

L – Long (20 s) Fig. 19. CICS Control Process Diagram showing the implementation of
N – Normal (15 s) multiple FLC.
S – Short (10 s)
VS – Very Short (5 s) Figs. 20-27 shows the membership inputs and outputs of
the CICS FLC.

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 Fig. 20. Membership Function for Soil Moisture (SM) of CICS FLC

Fig. 27. Membership Function for Length of time for sprinkler or humidifier
valve to open (VP2) of CICS FLC

III. SIMULATION RESULTS

In order to have an idea of the expected output for the

proposed irrigation system, the simulation was done in
Fig. 21. Membership Function for Change in Soil Moisture (DSM) of CICS MATLAB. Each subsystem was simulated, and each FLC was
FLC tested using the Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) simulation.
Since the simulation consists of multiple crisp input values
and crisp output values, it can be easily seen using the Surface
Viewer and can be interpreted. The surface viewer shows the
relationship of the inputs and outputs of the FLC. [5] Figs. 28
to 33 shows the fuzzy surface view of each FLC in the
subsystem control.

Fig. 22. Membership Function for Temperature (T) of CICS FLC

Fig. 23. Membership Function for Change in Temperature (DT) of CICS FLC

Fig. 28. Fuzzy Surface View of WTMCS FLC

Fig. 24. Membership Function for Humidity (H) of CICS FLC

Fig. 29. Fuzzy Surface View of FPMCS FLC

Fig. 25. Membership Function for Change in Humidity (DH) of CICS FLC

Fig. 26. Membership Function for Length of time for drip irrigation valve to Fig. 30. Fuzzy Surface View of OICS FLC and CICS FLC1
open (VP1) of CICS FLC

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Fig. 31. Fuzzy Surface View of CICS FLC2
Fig. 32. Fuzzy Surface View of CICS FLC3
Fig. 33. Fuzzy Surface View of CICS FLC4
IV. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Based on the simulations above, it can be seen that SFAIS
has a high chance of providing an optimal distribution of
water resource and electrical resource to the farm through the
implementation of fuzzy logic in the system. Fuzzy surface
outputs of each FLC of subsystems can clearly identify that
the resources will be allocated properly and not giving the
whole resource for a particular time. Also, implementation of
multiple FLC for subsystems with more than 2 inputs is a
good practice instead of having a single FLC with more than 2
inputs due to its effect on the computing memory.
For future researchers, the researchers recommend the
implementation of artificial neural network (ANN) and
Genetic Algorithm (GA) to achieve a more efficient system in
distributing an optimal system.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The researchers would like to thank the Engineering
Research and Development for Technology (ERDT) of the
Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and De La
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Salle University (DLSU) for the continuous assistance to
make this research possible.
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