CS 890EP : Internet of Things and Wireless Sensor Networks Vivek Pujara

200399072

Project Proposal

Smart Farming

Problem Definition

Since the beginning of civilizations, farming has been one of the most important aspects of
the society and is expected to be equally important in today’s time. The world is getting
smaller and the world population is increasing at a tremendous rate. The current accounted
population of the world is 7.6 Billion as of June 2018.

Source: http://theday.co.uk

Along with an increase in the population, the demand of food supply increases. Under these
circumstances, it is crucial to constantly improvise the existing farming techniques in-order
to stabilize the food demand-supply ratio.

The agriculture industry is developing from all aspects to increase the production rate which
includes using better fertilizers, more efficient machinery and better quality seeds.
Automation of farming techniques is one of effective solutions to increase the productivity.
Yet there is a dire need for some technological advancement to help the farmers in improving
the crop quality and increase the yield.

Proposed Solution
A number of farming procedures can be automated to improve the crop quality and quantity
of production, but irrigation is the most crucial. Many times insufficient water supply, over
irrigation and irregular irrigation damages the crop quality and yield. The major cause of any
irrigation problem is that the irrigations systems are solely dependent on human judgment
and actions. If the irrigation procedure is automated then this problem can be solved.
CS 890EP : Internet of Things and Wireless Sensor Networks Vivek Pujara
200399072

The proposal is to completely automate the irrigation procedure where in least human
intervention is required to run the system. There are 2 basic modules to be automated which
are mostly carried out manually:
1. Decision making i.e. deciding the amount and frequency of water required.
2. Supplying water to the crops.

The 2 basic blocks of irrigation procedure can be automated separately but for efficient
outcome it is required that both the modules are interlinked despite of having the capability
to work independently.

Implementation of the Solution

As stated previously the there are 2 elements to be automated to completely automate the
irrigation process. The decision making can be done using soil moisture sensors, where in the
system would continuously monitor the moisture levels in the soil, if the moisture level drops
below the requirement the either the irrigation system would be switched on or the farmer
would be informed depending on the choice of the user. Along with soil moisture sensor, a
light sensor will also be used to determine the presence or absence of sunlight with an
intention of deciding the amount of water to be supplied. This type of a system solves the
problem of insufficient water supply and over irrigation. The outcome of this module would
be that the crop gets sufficient water and excess of water usage is reduced.

The second module involves automating the water supply. Using a controller the water
supply can be switched on whenever the moisture detection system indicates that there is a
need of water. With the help of submersible water pumps that would be controlled by the
controller this is possible. The benefit of this module is that even if the user/farmer is not
available or busy, the irrigation of crops is not affected.

The combination of moisture sensing and automated water supply, the irrigation procedure
can be perfected to benefit the farmer and to increase food production to meet the demands of
growing population.

Scalability
The scalability of this system is that along with moisture sensing other factor like
temperature, salinity, proportion of soil and fertilizer, detection of pests can be added to this
module to achieve the final target of Smart Farming.
At a later stage of the project, if the previous modules are finished well in advance, a GUI is
to be developed to provide full remote control and monitoring facility to the farmer.

References
 Jayaraman, P. P., Palmer, D., Zaslavsky, A., & Georgakopoulos, D. (2015, April).
Do-it-Yourself Digital Agriculture applications with semantically enhanced IoT
platform. In Intelligent Sensors, Sensor Networks and Information Processing
(ISSNIP), 2015 IEEE Tenth International Conference on (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
CS 890EP : Internet of Things and Wireless Sensor Networks Vivek Pujara
200399072

 https://www.iso.org/files/live/sites/isoorg/files/news/magazine/ISOfocus%20(2013-
NOW)/en/2017/ISOfocus_122/ISOfocus_122_EN.pdf
 https://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEdgeArticles/ArticleID/16653/
Smart-FarmingAutomated-and-Connected-Agriculture.aspx
 https://www.schuttelaar-partners.com/news/2017/smart-farming-is-key-for-the-
future-of-agriculture