Development of a GSM-Based Irrigation Control System

Abstract

This work presents a Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) based irrigation control system which will be used to monitor soil conditions and control water usage in the farm. The proposed system will acquire soil moisture, temperature, humidity and pH from the farm and accordingly sends a Short Message Service (SMS) to the farmer through the GSM Module requesting for an action. If the response from the farmer is not forth coming due to network failure or other unforeseen circumstances after a given period of time, the system automatically turns ON/OFF the control pump depending on the situation of the farm. These sensors are embedded to a reliable microcontroller (ATmega 328 p) device which performs data acquisition and processing operations of the control system. Power supply plays an important role in this developed system, hence for this system; a robust solar power system (solar panel, charge controller and battery) is built to power the irrigation control system. Also as a constituent of functionality, a data logger was incorporated into the control system to store soil conditions of the farm. Several tests were carried out on the developed prototype; Moisture content of the soil, temperature, humidity and pH. The results from the tests conducted show that the system was able to effectively monitor soil conditions, control the pump (water usage) and also give the relationship between the moisture content of the soil, humidity, pH and temperature. The higher the temperature, the lower the moisture content and humidity of the soil and also, the lower the temperature the higher the soil moisture. The result obtained indicates that the soil moisture is at optimum with sensed values between 54% - 64% with temperature range of 26◦C – 35◦C. pH of the soil is at optimum level through the cause of this study with level ranging between 6.5 – 6.85 pH level signifying that the soil is moderately acidic and fertile.