smart irrigation

Smart Irrigation System Using IoT in Agriculture

During regular work, farmers are currently constantly working with high-tech solutions; for example, many use sensors to lay out their farms in great detail and study the soil’s elements. Smartphones have been utilized to analyze work efficiency, agricultural development, and market movements. All of these developments can be interconnected due to IoT.

Improved team performance, keeping track of results, connecting with some other teams and subgroups, and managing market conditions are just a few of the problems that smart agriculture may solve for the world’s farmers. Farms across the globe were quickly considering integrating IoT technology into their operational processes. The IoT agriculture sector is expected to achieve $30 billion globally by 2023.

How To Build Smart Irrigation Systems For Farms

Smart irrigation is where the Internet of Things in farming first appears for most farms. We can reduce supplies and make sure that crops receive high-quality care by adjusting their moisture level and quantity. IoT solutions that utilize sensors gain knowledge well about soil, keep track of a crop’s condition, and send this data collected by the sensors to agricultural irrigation systems. A platform responds to this alarm and also the water spray operates so quickly it detects insufficient water inside the soil.

smart irrigation systems

When the moisture level reaches a certain level, smart irrigation will terminate. It is dependent upon flowing pressure as well as temperature changes. In order to verify that a pipeline is already in good operating order as well as that water is flowing in the right volumes, a finished may monitor its motor’s performance.

Operators using smart irrigation systems can monitor their own irrigation conditions, enable or disable the operation only with a single click of a button, and also get reports on agricultural technology, soil moisture, and weather conditions. A system must have six key elements in order to fulfill these various goals:

The Six Key Elements are followed by

1. Remote control

A smartphone and computer are commonly used to manage agricultural irrigation systems. An individual installs a mobile app, adds their profile information to it, and is then taken to the administration page. Many farmers opt to have a second physical irrigation control system because of the speed with which smartphones could be affected.

This controller, either a smartphone or even a hardware device, is connected to sensors that gather and transmit information about temperatures, moisture content, and soil properties.

2. Accurate agriculture

Depending upon its biological requirements, different products take special irrigation strategies. According to the present agricultural and soil situations, smart farming utilizing IoT and machine learning technology enables on-demand planning and implementation of farm operations like irrigation or chemical control.

The irrigation system must identify multiple zones determined by the kind of plant, soil, and environmental condition to ensure that every plant category gets the terms proposed. Based on the actual sensed data, farmers must be capable of setting up a different irrigation outlet in all of these locations and set up a different timetable in all of them.

3. Smart timetables

The difficulty for smart irrigation systems depends, particularly with respect to water modification. Also with the ability to start or end irrigation at any time, many devices help basic scheduling for a specialized approach area. Some methods can handle complicated weekly plans including predetermined pauses and various levels of activity. While this is happening, a system for managing water utilizing Internet of Things sensors can modify the amount and frequency of watering according to information like moisture, temperature, as well as other sensors.

4. Systems for monitoring

The system must inform the farmer when irrigation starts and ends, as well as when it detects an issue. The technology must be able to identify errors in the irrigation flow and alert the farmer instantly in the event of a technical issue.

5. Environmental and conditions analysis

Modern methods also include the field’s position and specifications, the present climate, and prediction in addition to the moisture content of the soil. The technology can produce unique long-term watering schedules based on forecasts and machine learning recommendations.

6. Interoperation 

Agricultural irrigation systems need to be functional with other laptops and smartphones. The concept for this connection is that an agricultural farmer must be able to access information from every device at all times.

Types of Irrigation Systems For Farms

Every new aspect of irrigation has a significant impact also on the details of utilizing new irrigation since it modifies the watering strategies and brings significant problems. All four important kinds of irrigation systems could be linked to the IoT controller.

Types of Irrigation Systems

1. Flood irrigation

Flood irrigation is a method of irrigation in which the water was controlled by either furrows (furrow irrigation) or through a section of something like a field that is divided from the surrounding area by Earth barriers (graded border irrigation). An underwater pipe provides water.

2. Sprinkler irrigation

As sprinkler irrigation is not dependent on a specific channel or field, it is a more flexible method of irrigation. Sprinkler innovations come in various forms.

The PVC pipes placed inside a line around the field are connected to the sprinkler. Those pipes were typically situated 40 feet from each other.

Solid set — The PVC pipe is set up completely down into the soil throughout the field’s complete area. Here on the ground of the field, the sprinkler is placed.

Mechanical Move Systems — Over the plant, sprinklers are attached.

Traveling Gun Irrigation — The sprinkler is connected to a tractor, which moves while watering the field.

The most popular IoT use is sprinkler irrigation. In order for the sprinkler to receive information from the environment, the sensors have to be attached to both the field as well as the sprinkler.

3. Drip irrigation

This style of irrigation, which utilizes the little transmitters, is frequently employed for farm fields. This irrigation maximizes water usage by supplying water straight toward the base of the plants. It is more frequently applied to vegetable crops and garden farming than to agriculture or cornfields.

4. Micro-irrigation

Since that micro-watering employs reduced sprinklers, this method of irrigation is especially accurate. They are employed in agricultural crops mostly because these kinds of farms need accurate control over watering amounts and timetables.

Therefore, accuracy must be given top priority while automating this irrigation, and sensor information must be closely monitored. Also, it is essential that a tool be able to monitor even the smallest changes in the moisture limits and discontinue watering anytime the field is getting too dry.

The Role of IoT in Agricultural Irrigation

Agricultural and irrigation procedures demand careful control and are highly dependent on the type of plant or climate. For this reason, farmers have focused on utilizing IoT in irrigation as well as other intelligent systems for watering control for a number of years. The watering plan can be changed according to actual updates from Iot technology that include the smallest variations in moisture and minor weather fluctuations.

smart irrigation systems

Controlling water costs

Both the quality and health of a product are most heavily dependent on water. The management of irrigation guarantees that such plants get the correct quantity of water at the proper time while also controlling the quantity of water utilized. Inspection is now easier to access due to the Internet of Things, which connects sensors and stores all information on a laptop or mobile device.

Avoiding water waste

Water for irrigation is wasted when there isn’t fast management and careful maintenance. It affects the quality of the plant, affects the soil, and may cause a shortage. Utilizing just the amount of water that is required mostly by plants, smart irrigation helps protect water supplies.

perfect crop production

Since the economy keeps growing, there is a growing need for agricultural production. Farmers must simplify their workflow or management systems of being capable of creating more plants in less time in order to satisfy this growing demand for food. Actual information, market possibilities and dangers, and impacts of environmental monitoring are all made possible by IoT data analysis (humidity, rainfall, temperature, etc).

How to Build Your Own Drip Irrigation System

Smart irrigation should provide the possibility to customize the schedule for crop irrigation, decrease water waste, and evaluate dampness levels. This is achieved with a microcontroller that acts as a channel for information transmission. The microcontroller is connected to sensors that transmit data on moisture, temperature, etc. The following key steps will show you how to build an irrigation system in a simple way:

Prepare hardware

For an irrigation system, you need to have the following farm irrigation equipment:

Soil moisture sensors for analyzing the dielectric data of soils for analyzing water levels and volumes;

SMS controllers for scheduling on-demand irrigation;

Temperature sensors, equipped by RTDs — Resistance Temperature Detector Components.

Set up LED lights

The LED light might be set to come on frequently to warn both the irrigation system and the farmer about adjustments in both moisture and temperature. Water sprays in different agricultural areas are kept under check using LED lamps.

Moving nozzles can be used to replace fixed sprinklers.

Water consumption can be reduced by using moving nozzles on the sprinkler since they deliver targeted streams of water to numerous areas. Sprinklers can reach all land regions because they have a variety of spinning directions.

Internet connection

WiFi networks are used by IoT systems to send data through the controller along with other equipment. In the beginning, a lightweight network such as Sigfox or LoRaWAN network is used to transfer information from sensors into an information handling station. The following stage includes employing a mobile or desktop computer as a monitoring device for transmitting statistical information to farmers’ interfaces.

Locating sensors

On the condition of the soil surface, detectors must transmit current information into the clouds. These must be placed in areas that accurately reflect the general situation of the ground, which is typically close to each plant’s base. To keep the sensor out of direct touch with the water, it must be covered with soil.

Drones may also be utilized as extra support for monitoring huge fields from a distance and identifying portions that require irrigation immediately.

Monitoring technical issues

Most irrigation systems frequently experience issues with fractures and barrel leakage. Building an indirect irrigation system including leakage control, therefore, becomes necessary. The sensors are supposed to identify unusual flows of water and notify the whole system. The algorithms are used for alerting inform the farmer right away. Additionally, if the property owner cannot manually discontinue the irrigation, it must stop immediately as the amount of moisture exceeds the maximum acceptable range. Automated methods are therefore necessary to ensure the efficient reduction of irrigation problems.

Benefits of IoT system in irrigation

IoT irrigation systems have several advantages, a few of which might be categorized as decreased average water usage, increased cost and effectiveness productivity, decreased energy use, reduced crop loss, and more.

Reducing water use represents one integration of the key advantages of IoT systems for irrigation. Additionally, with such a method, the majority of irrigation-related tasks are performed automatically, just the necessary water is used for irrigation, and waste is reduced. A significant quantity of water went unused in the method of irrigation when human involvement was necessary for the conventional methods of irrigation when the majority of management and procedures were performed continuously.

Smart Irrigation System Using IoT

Using smart irrigation requires very little human contact, and water is utilized only where and when it is necessary. Some of these additional advantages include excellent savings in costs since a smaller amount of water is used and more accuracy in the method results in reduced prices and total costs. Since fewer devices must run longer periods of time while programmed breaks exist along the procedure, this reduces overall power utilization, the strategy also greatly reduces the use of energy.

Additionally, because supplies are few and companies must manage expenses to some level, it is critical to reduce expenses and conserve resources. With smart irrigation, the cost aspect is taken into account, making it possible for carrying out all the associated tasks successfully while spending less money. Last but not least, a few of the additional benefits that come with improved quality of irrigation and handling of water, crops, and gardens only receive the necessary amount of water to grow, which lowers crop loss from insufficient or heavy watering.

Current problems and future possibilities

There are several potential applications for IoT technologies in food and agriculture. The price, independent functioning, flexibility, maintenance-free efficiency, solid design, and durability of IoT in smart irrigation are only a few of the many aspects that require more study. Agriculture is expected to develop as an innovative company once integrated systems understand the possibilities of artificial intelligence and big data.

The numerous agricultural instruments, machinery, and management procedures that may be utilized for everything from plantings to crop forecasts shall be combined in such integrated structures. Advanced machineries like agriculture robots, cloud-based computing, artificial intelligence, and big data could bring the future of IoT to the agricultural sector. To guarantee a profitable farming industry, these tools are highly valued.

Farmers and other users that integrate machine learning predictions with mobile applications have a number of opportunities. Through increasing irrigation requirement estimates, adjusting time and quantity depending on plant water requirements, and automatically correcting for loss of water, efficiency in using water might be increased.

With increasing irrigation requirement estimations, adjusting scheduling and quantity according to plant requirements for water, and automatically correcting for losses of water, efficiency in using water may be increased. As a result of this, production will rise without requiring lesser amounts of water. Smarter-trained models can be used to make more effective irrigation decisions as the structure gets more complex and smart. As a result, irrigation-related difficulties and strain might be significantly decreased for both farmers and users.

Conclusion

The computer operation of this automatic watering system is simple. It functions as an automated shifting process that monitors the amount of soil moisture and, if required, irrigates the plant with water. Additionally, this will reduce lost energy and save both money and time. This experiment attempts to develop a low-cost, practical solution that may be purchased by a poor farmer. It does that by using inexpensive sensors and simple technology.

A smart irrigation system can solve all the problems associated with a traditional strategy. By detecting the moisture content and the condition of the soil, this technique controls the flow of water by employing motor pumps to deliver the required amount of moisture. There, data is transferred to a network via IoT technology with little help from people.