SOLAR BASED AUTO IRRIGATION

SYSTEM
A MINI PROJECT REPORT

Submitted by

Aravindharaj P (111717105008)

Barath E (111717105014)

Barath W (111717105015)

In partial fulfillment for the award of the degree

Of

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING
in

ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING

R.M.K. ENGINEERING COLLEGE, KAVARAIPETTAI

ANNA UNIVERSITY CHENNAI 600 025

APRIL 2020
 ANNA UNIVERSITY: CHENNAI 600 025

BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE

Certified that the mini project report “ Solar based auto irrigation system” is the
bonafide work of “Aravindharaj P (1117175008), Barath E (111717105014) ,
Barath W(111717105015)” who carried out the project under my supervision.

SIGNATURE SIGNATURE

Dr.GEETHA RAMADOSS Ms P.KAVITHA M.E.,

PROFESSOR & HEAD OF SUPERVISOR,
DEPARTMENT, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR.
Department of electrical and Department of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering, Electronics Engineering,
R.M.K. Engineering College, R.M.K.Engineering College,
R.S.M. Nagar, R.S.M.Nagar,
Kavaraipettai - 601206. Kavarapettai – 601206.

Submitted for the mini project viva voice held on

…………………………………….……. at R.M.K. Engineering College,

Kavaraipettai-601 206.

INTERNAL EXAMINER EXTERNAL EXAMINER

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Support on demand , encouragement at the needed moment and guidance in the right
direction are indespensible for the success of any project. We have received these in
excess from all corners from various people. We are glad to submit our gratitude to
them.

We thank Shri. R.S. Munirathinam Chairman, and Shri. R.M. Kishore, Vice
Chairman of RMK Group of Institutions for extending a generous hand in providing
the best of resources to the college.

We extend our sincere thanks to Dr. K.A. Mohamed Junaid, the Principal of RMK
Engineering college for giving the continuous support for the completion of our
project.

Dr. Geetha Ramadoss, the esteemed Head of our Department has been a source of
motivation to all the staffs and students of our department.

We extend our profound gratitude to Ms. Annie Isabella and Ms. P Kavitha our
project coordinators and Mr .Naresh Kumar for the support in guidance to complete
our project successfully.

We take this opportunity to extend our thanks to all the teaching and non-teaching
staffs of the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering. Regards to our
family, classmates and friends who offered an unflinching moral support for
completion of this project.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER TITLE PAGE NO

ABSTRACT 5

1. INTRODUCTION 6

2. ARDUINO 7
2.1 Arduino Uno Board 8
2.2 Interfacing of lcd 9

3. HARDWARE DESCRIPTION 10
3.1 Soil based Moisture sensor 11
3.2 Solar panel 13
3.3 Prototype Module 15

4. RESULT AND DISCUSSION 16

5. FUTURE AND ENHANCEMENT 17

6. CONCLUSION 18
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 ABSTRACT

Automatic solar power irrigation system, an advanced form

of solar irrigation system consists of an automatic control to
ON and OFF the control valves which aids the farmers by
governing the supply of water to the irrigation lands. It also
sustains the moisture level of soil that results in letter yield.
This proposed system employes soil sensor to detect the
water quantity present in agricultural field. This system is
based on Arduino, and aims at reducing the water usage. Its
regular practice, Watering of crops is the most significant
practice and arduous task. Irrespective of climatic
conditions, the proposed system would be able to control
the water that reaches the farm plants. This system should
be effectively used to water the plant based on the demand.
Installation of automatic plant watering system requires
combination of sprinkler systems, pipes and nozzles.

KEYWORDS

1.Solar Panel
2. Sensors
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3.Garderning setup
4.Arduino Uno (ATMEGA 328)

1.INTRODUCTION

Agriculture is the basis of livelihood and has incredible

effect on the economy of India. In dry territories or in areas
of inadequate shower, irrigation becomes more difficult
task. So, irrigation of dry lands requires more attention and
automation would be the best solution. Alarming rise in the
cost of energy and declining water sources demands the
need of better water management. Management of irrigation
is a complicated verdict to presume the amount of water to
be supplied to the crop fields to end up in better yield. The
distant irrigation lands draws less attention of farmers due to
lack of regular vists. So, a remote monitoring automated
irrigation system consisting of controllers with ON and OFF
control valves helps farmers in management of irrigation
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better. The system utilizes the emerging and open source
platform, Arduino. We developed an idea of solar based
auto irrigation system harvesting energy from solar power.
We made an analysis on Economy of India’s ground water
and irrigation with solar pumps.

2.ARDUINO

2.1Arduino Uno Board

The Arduino Uno is a microcontroller board based on the

ATMEGA 328.It comprises of 14 digital Input / Output pins
out of which 6 shall be used for the pulse Width Modulation
outputs, 6 analog inputs, 16MHz ceramic resonator, USB
connection & power jack, an ICSP header and a reset
button. It consist of all components needed to support the
microcontroller. The unique characteristic of this board is it
does not require FTDI USB-to-serial driver chip. It

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employes Atmega16U2 programme as a USB-to-serial
converter.

fig 2.1. Arduino

2.2 Interfacing LCD with Arduino Uno

Liquid crystal Display modules are very essential

component in embedded system and knowledge on their
interfacing is mandatory for designing a good system. 16x2
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Liquid Crystal Display is used to interface with Arduino
Uno. Arduino based embedded system designs knowledge
on interfacing of the both is highly essential. 16x2 LCD is
employed to interface the Arduino and LCD module named
JHD162A is used in the proposed system. This module is
made from Hitachi, It consists of 4 bit mode or 8 bit mode.

fig 2.2. Arduino to 16x2 LCD Modules

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 3.HARDWARE DESCRIPTION

This module of soil moisture sensor comprises two output

pins, one digital and other analog. Output obtained from the
moisture sensors are compared with the set value by using
the comparator. The output combination depends on the
digital pin either low or high, to decide the soil condition.
The dry or wet condition is adjusted by the programming
part. Figure 3 illustrates that a sensor pin is connected to
any one of the analog pins of Arduino and 1K ohm resistor
is used to pull up the line. Analog pins of Arduino controller
can also act as digital inputs. The output of the soil moisture
sensor determines the status of the tank. LCD display is
connected to the Arduino controller to show the moisture
level status respectively and also the 4 th pin links to motor
driver which it turns drives the 12 V DC motor.

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 fig 3. Circuit Diagram

3.1 Soil Based Moisture Sensor

In soil moisture sensor status could be resolute by direct

&indirect methods. Soil moisture sensor are not commonly
used for irrigation scheduling. These sensors are installed at
predefined places in farms for measurement of moisture
over a specific period of time. The sensors need close
attention in soil as they are to be installed in soil matrix.
Soil moisture is very needed component in the atmospheric
water cycle, used in agricultural scale large-scale modeling
of land or atmosphere interaction. Vegetation and crops are
always depended more on their moisture exists at root level
on the incident. The water based budgeting in irrigation
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system planning, as wetness helps to estimate the risk of
low-lying areas, or instance of fog. The relationship
between content and potential is not common and is
dependent on features of local soil like density and soil
texture. The soil water content is identified by using
gravimetric model. Owing to the fact by method is based on
direct measurements, it is the standard by which all other
methods are compared. As gravimetric method is a
destructive type, repeatability highly impossible. The direct
gravimetric measurement is a tedious process which
involves measurement of soil moisture by removing.

Withering and weighing of samples, whereas soil moisture

sensors use property like electrical resistance or dielectric
constant. The measured value and moisture content of soil
relationship is measured and calibrated which is highly
affected by environmental factors. The soil based moisture
sensor is used to estimate the volumetric content of water
and also measures the potential of the water content.

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 fig 3.1 Soil Moisture Sensor

3.2 Solar panel

Solar panel boards assimilate sunlight and convert it to generate

electricity/heat. A photovoltaic setup is a package consisting of
6x10 solar PV cells. The main principle working is photovoltaic
effect. The construction of module employs wafer-based
crystalline silicon or thin film cells.

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The individual cells may be electrically connected in series or
parallel with one another. Some special solar PV modules include
concentrators in which light is focused by lenses or mirrors onto
smaller cells. This enables the use of cells with a high cost per unit
area in a cost-effective way. Solar panels comprises of metal
frames with racking components, brackets, reflectors and troughs
in order to better support the panel structure.

fig 3.2 Solar Panel

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3.3 Prototype Module

This module consists of Arduino, Solar panel, Interfacing of

LCD and External power source. The moisture level sensor
is interfaced with the Arduino UNO processor to determine
the soil moisture level-Wet/Dry. The solar panel is the
power generating source through the absorption of energy
from the sunlight. Arduino is activated by external power
source. The LCD display highlights the temperature and
moisture level of soil. The pump is used to supply the water
during the wet and dry condition based on the signal sent
from the Arduino.

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 fig 3.4 Prototype

4. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

“Solar Based Auto Irrigation System” has been abbreviated

as SBAIS. It is designed and was tested successfully. Every
component proposed system has been identified and
assembled carefully to work automatically. The moisture
sensors have chosen to measure content of different plant. If
the moisture levels is found to be below the desired level,
the moisture sensor sends the signal to the Arduino board to
turn ON Water pump and supply the water to the respective
plant using the rotating platform/Sprinkler. When the
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desired moisture level is reached, the Water pump is sent off
signal to turn it OFF. Thus, the working of the proposal
system has been tested thoroughly and ensured the desired
functioning. The real parameters are recorded with the
designed system and tabulated as follows:
Solar output voltage 12V
Battery charging time 7hours
Battery discharging time 4.2hours
Battery voltage 12V
Battery Amps 7AH
Arduino input 5V
Soil in dry condition Pump ON
Soil in wet condition Pump OFF
Table 4. Obtained Results

5.FUTURE ENHANCEMENT

Our proposed system can be further enhanced by inclusion

of Web scaper which predicts the weather and irrigate the
plants/crops accordingly. On raining forecast, less amount
of water is supplied for the plants. Automatic carrying of

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plants will be done. Plantation will be successful in low
water quantities. Environment balancing like tree plantation
& saving trees kind of activities will become easy once
implemented. It is possible to pumping the water by solar
energy. It is possible to connect Moisture sensor to sense
moisture.

6.CONCLUSION

 Easy to implement system and environment

friendly solution for irrigating fields.
 Found successful for bore holes as they can pump
over the whole day.
 Minimal maintenance, manual interaction and
attention as they are self-starting.
 In long run this system is economical.

7.

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