SMART IRRIGATION USING LOW-COST MOISTURE SENSOR AND

CORTEX ARM M3

COURSE CODE BEC30403

NAME OF COURSE MICROPROCESSOR AND MICROCONTROLLER

FACULTY Faculty of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Maizatul binti Malik CE150214

Meenachi A/P Parthipan CE170050
Mohd Faiq bin Ramzei DE150002
Maheenthran Shanmugavelu CE170066
MEMBERS
Muhammad Eizham bin Zaihan AE150107

SECTION SECTION 3 (GROUP 7)

NAME OF LECTURER ENCIK HAZWAJ BIN MHD POAD

DATE OF SUBMISSION 26 May 2019

REPORT
MARKS
TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITEL PAGE NUMBER

i. Declaration and acknowledgement 1-2

Chapter 1
1.0 Introduction 3
1.1 Problem Statement 4
1.2 Objective 4

Chapter 2
2.0 Literature Review 5-6
2.1 Block Diagram 6

Chapter 3
3.0 Methodology 7
3.1 Flow Chart 7-8
3.2 Components 8-10

Chapter 4
4.0 Data Analysis 11
4.1 Result 12
4.2 Coding 13

Chapter 5
5.0 Discussion 14
5.1 Conclusion 14
BIBLIOGRAPHY 15
APPENDIXES 15
 DECLARATION

We, hereby declare that this project neither as a whole not as a part there of has been copied out
from any source. It is further declared that we have developed this project and the acomparried
report entirely on basic of our personal efforts made under the sincere guidance of our lecturer
ENCIK HAZWAJ BIN MHD POAD. No portion of the work presented in the report that has been
submitted in the support of any other degree or qualification of this or any other University or
Institute of Learning.

…………………….. ……………………..

Muhammad Eizham bin Zaihan Maheenthran Shanmugavelu

(AE150107) (CE170066)

…………………….. ……………………..

Mohd Faiq bin Ramzei Meenachi a/p Parthipan

(DE150002) (CE170050)

……………………..

Maizatul binti Malik

(CE150214)

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We have taken efforts in this project. However, it would not have been possible without
the kind support and help of many individuals and organizations. We would like to extend the
sincere thanks to all of them.

We highly indebted to FKEE faculty lecturer in University Tun Hussein Onn for their
guidance and constant supervision as well as for providing necessary information regarding the
project and also for their support in completing the project.

We grateful to the entire member in this group, we had pleasure to work during this project.
Each of the members in this project truly provide their support as a teamwork and we succefully
complete this project.

We would especially like to thank DR Hazwaj Bin Mhd Poad . As our project lecturer and
mentor, he has taught us more than we could ever give him credit for here. He has shown us, by
his knowledge sharing in every very period of his class.

Our thanks and appreciations go to our university in developing the project and people who
have willingly helped us out with their abilities.

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 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Agriculture remains an important sector of Malaysia's economy, contributing 12 percent to

the national GDP and providing employment for 16 percent of the population. The British
established large-scale plantations and introduced new commercial crops (rubber in 1876, palm oil
in 1917, and cocoa in the 1950s). The three main crops, rubber, palm oil, and cocoa have dominated
agricultural exports ever since, although the Malaysia share of the world's production of these
crops declined steadily during the last 2 decades. In addition to these products, Malaysian farmers
produce a number of fruits and vegetables for the domestic market, including bananas, coconuts,
durian, pineapples, rice, rambutan (a red, oval fruit grown on a tree of the same name in South
Asia), and others. The Malaysian tropical climate is very favorable for the production of various
exotic fruits and vegetables especially since Peninsular Malaysia seldom experiences hurricanes
or droughts.

However, climate changes and lack of precision agriculture have resulted in poor yield as
compared to population growth. Irrigation is mostly done using canal systems in which water is
pumped into fields after regular interval of time without any feedback of water level in field. This
type of irrigation affects crop health and produces a poor yield because some crops are too sensitive
to water content in soil. A similar situation exists in many other countries of South Asia. Many
smart irrigation systems have been devised. A smart irrigation system, contrary to a traditional
irrigation method, regulates supplied water according to the needs of the fields and crops. The
feedback mechanism of a smart irrigation system is a moisture sensor. Evapotranspiration (ET),
thermal imaging, capacitive methods, and neutron scattering method and gypsum blocks are some
of the technologies that enable moisture sensing. Capacitive sensors, however instantaneous, are
costly and need to be calibrated often with varying temperature and soil type.

Therefore, an automated irrigation unit, in conjunction with a low-cost moisture sensor, is

proposed in this paper. A system level description is provided, detailing the hardware and software
design. The working principle of the sensor introduces the ARM technology.

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 1.1 Problem Statement

In the present era one of the greatest problems faced by the world is water scarcity and
agriculture being a demanding Occupation consumes plenty of water. Therefore a system is
required that uses water judiciously. Focus of this paper is to overcome this problem by using
smart irrigation system. Smart irrigation systems estimate and measure diminution of existing plant
moisture in order to operate an irrigation system, restoring water as needed while minimizing
excess water use.

1.2 Objectives

The objectives of this project are:

i. To develop a smart irrigation system in order to get a significant saving in the consumption

of water to irrigate the crops.

ii. To design the automatic irrigation system by using the PIC as the main microcontroller.

To conduct fundamental and applied research in water management.

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 CHAPTER 2

LETERATURE REVIEW

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

In this paper, soil moisture sensor, temperature sensors placed in root zone of plant and
gateway unit handles the sensor information and transmit data to a web application. One algorithm
was developed for measure threshold values of temperature sensor and soil moisture sensor that
was programmed into a PIC microcontroller to control water quantity. For power, photovoltaic
panel was used. Another facto like cellular-Internet interface used that allowed for data inspection
and irrigation scheduling to be programmed through a web page.

The automatic system was tested for several days in this paper, soil moisture content has
been detected using acoustic based technique was developed. The main propose of this technique
is development for measure soil moisture in real time method. The technique based on relationship
between two quantities example speed of sound and the degree of saturation with water in soils.
This experiment found that the speed of sound decreases with the moisture content following,
depending on the kind of soil.

This paper design a model of automatic irrigation system, which is based on

microcontroller, and source of power supply. Various sensor are placed in paddy field. Sensors
sense water level continuously and give the information to farmer through cellular phone. Farmer
controls the motor using cellular phone without going in paddy field. If the water level reaches at
danger level, automatically motor will be off without conformation of farmer.

The automatic system based on ARM and for communication Wi-Fi technology was used.
Irrigation system provides foe adequate irrigation in particular area, which is real time. Soil
moisture sensor placed in root zone in paddy field and sense water level. The system was set up
using Cortex ARM M3. WIFI connection with PC is an important part of these this system. System
communicates using smart irrigation using low-cost moisture sensor technology. Wi-Fi operate
through PC and is a link between ARM processor and centralized unit. This system detects climate
condition and field condition in real time. This information send to user in the form of PC and

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WIFI modem is controlled with the help of standard set of AT (Attention) commands. These
commands are used to control majority of the functions.

In the paper, automatic irrigation technique irrigated using wireless sensor network internet
technology. The idea was developed for improve irrigation system and reduced cost of irrigation
water. Sensors are placed in farm and sense continuously and collect he information. This in-
formation stored at center monitor, also passes to data collection interface, and then transmits to
the wireless sensor node. Using this information system was control automatically using internet.

2.1 Block Diagram

Figure 1: Bock diagram

The following figure-1 shows the block diagram of modern agricultural system. The
parameters as discussed in the block diagram will monitor the field and gives the accurate results
to the user. Here the new and important things are Level sensors to monitor the soil condition. If
it is dry means, this condition is very harmful to plants. So immediately release the water into the
soil and make it wet. For this we will use the level sensors. Temperature and humidity are useful
in the case of monitoring the weather conditions.

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 CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

3.0 METHODOLOGY
3.1 Flowchart
This is the illustration for the automatic plant watering system sense the moisture content
of the soil and automatically switch the pump when the power is on. A proper usage of the
automatic plant watering system is important because the main reason is shortage of land reserved
water due to lack of rain, unplanned use of water as a result large amount of water goes waste.

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This project is carried out by executing the steps stated in the flowchart and the proposed device
which is using the ARM M3 microcontroller .

3.2 Components

3.2.1 Moisture Sensors

Moisture sensor is a device that measures the relative moisture of any environment. There
are various types of moisture sensors but most common are the impedance based ones. Impedance
based sensors works on the change of impedance between two electrodes due to varying moisture
content in the surrounding medium. Hence, when the electrodes are kept in soil, its moisture level
changes can measured in a relative manner. This is the fundamental by which the proposed sensor
works.

Figure 2: Soil moisture sensor

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 3.2.2 Temperature Sensor

Temperature sensor is a device; to measure the temperature through an electrical signal it

requires a thermocouple or RTD (Resistance Temperature Detectors). The thermocouple is
prepared by two dissimilar metals which generate the electrical voltage indirectly proportional to
change the temperature. The RTD is a VARIABLE RESISTENCE, it will change the electrical
resistance indirectly proportional to changes in the temperature in a precise, and nearly linear
manner.

Figure 3: Temperature sensor

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 3.2.3 Arm Cortex M3

The Invented Systems 802.11 b/g/n Serial to Wi-Fi module makes it easy to add Wi-Fi to
your embedded design. It can be programmed from a host with a choice of serial interfaces using
a simple AT command set.

These serial interfaces are provided by an STM32 ARM Cortex M3 processor as shown on the
block diagram. No software development is required for the STM32, the AT command set
interface is resident in firmware. This means your host microcontroller does not need a TCP/IP
stack or RTOS. This simplifies software development for your application - you only need to write
serial I/O code to send the AT commands and process data.

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 CHAPTER 4

DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

4.0 DATA ANALYSIS

An automatic irrigation system used for irrigate sage crop field for several days for
automatic irrigation systems irrigate using Wi-Fi and power source. Arm also used for monitoring
the irrigation system in real time based and for irrigation system, system irrigates using Wi-Fi to
pc system.

Automatic irrigation system control using in PC and internet thing. WIFI technique has
some disadvantage viz speed, distance factor, reliability, so GPRS and Zigbee is not used in our
project. Zigbee also have disadvantage low transmission rate so we more prefer to use Wi-Fi
connection between pc monitoring. It is only use for smaller distance. Maximum papers have
problem in networking and some security issues.

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 4.1 Result

Figure 4: Testing the soil

A system to monitor moisture levels in the soil was designed. The system was used to
switch on/off the watering system according to the soil moisture levels. The control unit the
prototype was implement using a microcontroller. To switch between the control and the irrigation
system a relay switching circuit was used. In order this project also helps prevent weeds and
disease in plant. With some of the more targeted sprinkler irrigation system options we can have
water delivered to the roots of the plants that we want to grow and be strong. The helps to stop
the weed seeds from germinating. Also, by limiting the water that is sprayed onto the leaves we
can reduce the chance of any blight or leaf diseases. Other than that we also can maintain soil
nutrient balance. Over watering the yard can cause the soil to lose some of the nutrients that all
plants need. With an automated or controlled distribution of water through a sprinkler irrigation
system we do not need to worry about this as the amount of water that is distributed is carefully
controlled and maintained. Another problem with overwatering is that soil can become too heavy
and compacted. This is not good at all for plants and should be avoided at all costs. With one of
the many sprinkler system installation options we can prevent this from happening.

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4.2 Coding For This Project

#include "mbed.h"

#include "DHT.h"

#include "C12832.h"

DHT sensor(p16, DHT11);

C12832 lcd(p5, p7, p6, p8, p11);

AnalogIn soil_moisture(p15);

int main()

int error = 0;

float h = 0.0f, c = 0.0f;

float value = 0.0f;

lcd.cls();

while(true) {

error = sensor.readData();

if (0 == error) {

c = sensor.ReadTemperature(CELCIUS);

h = sensor.ReadHumidity();

value = (100-((soil_moisture)*100));

lcd.locate(0,0);

lcd.printf("\nTemperature %2.2f\n", c);

lcd.printf("\nHumidity %2.2f\n", h);

lcd.printf("\nMoisture %2.2f\n", value);

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 CHAPTER 5

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

5.0 DISCUSSION

Modern agriculture offers a range of benefits, including greater production and higher
incomes for farmers including small producers in both developed and developing countries.
Agriculture is a source of livelihood and has great impact on the economy of the country. In dry
areas or in case of inadequate rainfall, irrigation becomes difficult. Therefore, it needs to be
automated for proper yield and handled remotely for farmer safety. Increasing energy costs and
decreasing water supplies point out the need for better water management. Irrigation water
management involves more than just turning on the irrigation system. Irrigation management is a
complex decision-making process to determine when and how much water to apply to a growing
crop to meet specific management objectives. If the farmer is far from the agricultural land, he will
not be noticed of current conditions.

This work implements the emerging applications of smart irrigation using low-cost
moisture sensor technology. Using WIFI networks, a control system has been proposed that will
act as an embedded system, which can monitor and control an agricultural motor and other devices
locally using built-in input and output peripherals. Controller and using microclimate data to
schedule irrigation water also irrigation is real time application. These technique, irrigate using
following technique.

5.1 CONCLUSION

The proposed model using ARM CORTEX M3, which is fully based on smart irrigation
using low-cost moisture sensor Module. This project developed agriculture field, increase the
growth of food production, and provides excellent water management. This can also useful for
increasing the economy and demand of food necessity.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] https://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Asia-and-the-Pacific/Malaysia-
AGRICULTURE.html#ixzz5iLShRWpq

[2] F.S. Zazueta, J.Xin, “Soil Moisture Sensors” in Bulletin 292, Gainsville, FL, USA:
University of Florida, 2004.

APPENDIXES

Dry Soil Moist Soil

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