1st Intl Conf.

on Recent Advances in Information Technology | RAIT-2012 |

Optimal Design of Solar Powered Fuzzy Control Irrigation System for Cultivation of Green Vegetable plants in Rural India
S. N. Singh1, Rishi Jha
Dept. of Electronics Engg. NIT Jamshedpur Jamshedpur, India snsnitjsr@gmail.com, rishijha.jsr@gmail.com
Abstract :This paper presents solution for an irrigation controller for cultivation of vegetable plants based on the fuzzy-logic methodology. Water is an essential element for growth of the plants, the amount of water given to the plants depends on its size, moisture control of soil, which is affected by temperature of environment, evaporation due to wind velocity and water budget. This paper presents a control strategy to feed water to plants in a controlled and optimal way. The study pertains to develop a solar powered pump controller, using fuzzy logic control strategy to feed water for cultivation of these plants. Solar energy conversion technology has been used to feed power to these pump controller. The system has been developed and tested with the growth of vegetable like tomato plant that resulted in saving of 50-60 percent water consumption as well as cost of energy generation. Keywords :Fuzzy logic controller, Photovoltaic power system, Irrigation system.

Mahesh Kr. Nandwana

Dept. of Electrical and Electronics Engg. NIT Jamshedpur Jamshedpur, India mahesh.nandwana@gmail.com Among all nonconventional energy resources solar electricity is gaining popularity because it has the advantages such as less maintenance, fuel free and pollution free green electricity generation etc. In this project study a solar powered fuzzy control irrigation system has been proposed. It consists of solar panels and their accessories, electric motor, pump and distribution system including pipeline and storage. All these elements must be designed properly in order to get an optimal performance of the entire system. The storage of electrical energy with batteries, in this type of application, becomes essential to operate the pump even in evening hour and sustain the delivery of power irrespective of fluctuation in sun radiation even in cloudy days and also maintain the ground water table by operating the pump with variable duty cycle. II. SYSTEM OVERVIEW The block diagram of proposed irrigation system consisting of PV power module, its integration with grid inverter, submersible pump and water sprinkling control unit is shown in Figure

I. INTRODUCTION Water is an essential element for the growth of plants. At present plants are fed water from various open sources such as wells, water tanks, rivers, ponds etc. But due to rapid growth of population, the domestic consumption of water from these open sources has increased manifold, thus shrinking their use for irrigation purpose. Now a days farmers are dependent mostly on rains for irrigation purpose and find it difficult to get water throughout a year for plants and crops [1, 2]. Remedy for this problem is to use an alternative water resource like bore well or rain harvested reservoir is utilized using electrical operated pump. The availability of conventional electrical energy is another problem especially in remote rural area. In order to get electricity and to operate these pumps farmers are presently using Diesel Generator set which is not only costly but also polluting the environment due to emission of poisonous gases like CO2. To get rid of this, need has been felt to use nonconventional energy sources like solar photovoltaic, wind energy etc.

Fig. 1: A model of fuzzy control based water sprinkling system.1. Solar power is absolutely perfect for use with irrigation system in grid deprived rural sector. By adding a suitable deep-cycle battery, power can be made available 24 hours a day, enabling watering in the evening the best time to

978-1-4577-0697-4/12/$26.00 2012 IEEE

1st Intl Conf. on Recent Advances in Information Technology | RAIT-2012 |

water plants in the summer so that the water has a chance to soak into the ground. The operating principle of the photovoltaic cell for generation of electricity uses the properties of solar radiation and semiconductor devices. The power supplied by the solar panel varies with temperature and solar irradiations. The power delivered by the solar panel is proportional to irradiations level (which varies during the sun hour) ranging from 200W/m2 at standard temperature (T = 25oC). The power stored in the battery, obtained from PV module, can be fed to either submersible pump through DC operated pump or converter to AC to operate AC pump. The use of AC pump is preferred to make the system more efficient. The SPWM technology used in the system with intelligent control action results in desired output with an optimal value.

thus maintain moisture content of soil as well as underground water table. III.

OPTIMAL DESIGN OF PVSYSTEM COMPONENTS

A. PV Sizing The standard energy balance principle [4, 5] has been used to compute the optimal size of PV module as expressed by (1), (2) and (3) to meet the load energy requirement of a village farm house in a day over 24 hours.

Where, Sun hour = 6.2 hours for adopted village areas Safety Factor (SF) = 1.5 for cloudy weather = Total load energy in watt-hours (i.e. total load power computed every hour over a period of 24 hours assuming hourly load power )

24h PTL (Wh) = (PL) Watt-Hours

Figure 2: Proposed power circuit model of solar (PV) power supply.

(2)

0h (3) B. Battery Sizing The battery stores the electrical energy converted from sun light (insolation) through PV cell to a maximum value as per average load energy requirement expressed as (4):

The solar (PV) power supply system makes the use of the PV module to generate DC electricity and subsequently used to convert it into AC power for pump and lighting loads [3]. As shown in Figure 2 the dual battery system of PV charging unit controlled through DPDT switch S1 feed power to load(s) from one of the battery (i.e B1 or B2) bank while other bank of battery (i.e. B2 or B1) store energy obtained from PV source and thus could be able to deliver power for 24hours a day. The inverter converts DC power from the 12V battery to SPWM AC power 220V +/- 20%, 50Hz for the load(s). The battery (B1 or B2) rated for 12V will supply power to load up to its maximum discharge level 10.4V. The base drive PWM pulses (positive and negative group), as required by inverter power module, generated by controller unit using IC oscillator circuits CD 4047 switch on and off the power transistor devices T1 and T2 of inverter module alternatively for 10ms and thus produces 50Hz AC voltage waveform across pump load due to centre tap transformer (Tr) action. Under no load condition S3 remains off. D1 and D2 are protective devices and prevent the transistor devices from voltage surges. The controller unit monitors and control the flow of energy with optimal operation and feeds power to pump with variable duty cycle as decided by fuzzy controller and

Where, SOC (state of charge) of battery = 50-60% The system is designed for load energy requirement of a village farm house whose specifications are given in next section. IV.

IRRIGATION CONTROL SYSTEM

1st Intl Conf. on Recent Advances in Information Technology | RAIT-2012 |

Irrigation controllers are based on a combination of predefined control concept (feed-forward) and feedback from the controlled object. In this type of controller, there is a feedback of the necessary data to determine the amount of water needed for cultivation of plant. There are several parameters that should not influence the decision of how much water to use in the irrigation process. Some of these parameters are fixed for the session, and are of an agricultural nature (such as the kind of plants, kind of soil, leaf coverage, stage of growth, etc.), and some of them vary and should be measured during the irrigation process. These parameters are of a physical nature (such as temperature, air humidity, radiation in the ground, soil humidity etc.).So when these conditions change, the amount of water being used for the irrigation should also change. The system described in this paper utilizes close-loop control. The controller receives feedback from one or more sensors in the field, that continuously provide updated data to the controller about input parameters that are influenced by the system behaviour (such as soil moisture level, temperature, wind velocity etc). According to the measurements provided by the sensors and the pre-programmed parameters, the controller decides the quantity of water to be added by regulating the period of operation of the water pump [5]. V. DESIGN OF FUZZY CONTROL SYSTEM Figure 3 depicts the block diagram of the controller embedded in the system model. As can be seen, the controller is operated with two inputs namely soil moisture and plant size and one output variable i.e. water budget. The input variables are sensed and measured at a regular interval during a day over 24 hour and fed to controller for getting the desired output as shown in Figure 3.

(height) has been divided into three categories i.e Big (B), Medium (M) and small (S) (Fig.5).The output controlled variable in the controller design is the water budget. C. Water Budget This determines the geographical commercial value of water usage. When this inputs low (say 5%) (Economy mode), as compared to a high input (say 90%) (Noneconomy mode), less water is used. This means that the soil moisture level is not as close to required soil moisture level as it would be in the non-economy mode. (Fig.6).The above input and output parameters are defined as fuzzy variables. The reason for defining these variables as fuzzy variables is embedded in the nature of the problem and the parameters. Agricultural products do not require precise amount of humidity in order to grow. There is a range of acceptable amount of water needed for irrigation in order to grow healthy crop products, and fuzzy logic control can provide that in a simple way. A control loop mechanism should be implemented to regulate and keep the actual value of soil moisture around the desired one. VI.

CONTROL STRATEGY

Fuzzy logic control has been used to pump water from underground through submersible pump. The output variable of this controller is the adaptive duty cycle, i.e. operating time interval of the pump, to a maximum value of 1 hour. A. Fuzzy Algorithm

Step 1: The input parameters are fuzzified from the data acquired by sensors Step 2: The max-min method of fuzzification, is used to set the fuzzy rules of the controller = (1 1) (2 2) (5) Where, 1and2 are membership functions , 1 and2 are variables Step 3: Fuzzy algorithm has been changed back by using the method of defuzzification. Subsequently, the approximate centre of gravity (COG) method, supposed to be the most accurate method to get a crisp value i.e. sharing time, is used for the defuzzification, as shown in (6).

Figure 3: Block diagram of fuzzy controller.

A. Soil Moisture Soil Moisture content is dependent on factors like heat and wind velocity. This represents the influence of the sun on the plant's soil humidity in the ground. The radiated heat, together with the wind velocity, accelerates the evaporation process. Air humidity is another factor which is mainly dependent on season. The input scaling has been done as High (H), Just Right (JR) and Low (L) (Fig.4). B. Size of the Plant The amount of water required is directly proportional to the size of plant. According to input scaling, the size

Where, i = action of the ith rule would dictate (i) = truth of rule

1st Intl Conf. on Recent Advances in Information Technology | RAIT-2012 |

1) Input Variables: a) Soil Moisture (SM) (0-100%) Low : trimf (30 40 %) Medium : trimf (30 70%) High : trimf (60 70%)

Figure 6: Membership function for variable duty cycle of operating time of pump.

Figure 4: Membership function for soil moisture.

Where, SM(L): Soil Moisture Low, SM(JR) : Soil moisture Just Right, SM(H) : Soil Moisture High PS(S): Plant size small, PS (M): Plant Size Medium & PS (B):Plant size Big. OT(S): Operation Time Small, OT (M): Operating Time Medium, OT (H): Operating Time High. Rule Matrix: The expert opinion of desired control action for the given condition of input parameter has been laid down in form of rules as follows. Rule 1: Rule 2: Rule 3: Rule 4: Rule 5: Rule 6: Rule 7: Rule 8: Rule 9: if PS is B and SM is L, Then OT is H if PS is B and SM is JR, Then OT is H if PS is B and SM is H, Then OT is M if PS is M and SM is L, Then OT is H if PS is M and SM is JR, Then OT is M if PS is M and SM is H, Then OTis S if PS is S and SM is L, Then OT is H if PS is S and SM is JR, Then OT isS if PS is S and SM is L, Then OT is S

b) Plant Size (PS) (0-1 meter) Small Medium Big Soil Moisture (65%) Plant, Size 80% : : : trimf (0 25%) trimf (0 100%) trimf (75 100%)

SM(H) 0.5 & SM (JR) 0.25 PS (B) 0.2 & PS ( M ) 0.4

B. A Case Study To maintain soil moisture at just right condition ( i.e. around 50 %) for the plant under study, the operational time in % of suitable sampling interval (preferably in evening hour) for the given conditions of input variables i.e. soil moisture (SM- 65%) and Plant size (PS - 80%) has been computed as given below: Rules fired are 2, 3, 5 and 6. Rule (3) : [SM(H)0.5 PS(B) 0.2)] = 0.20 Rule(2) : [SM(JR)0.25PS(B)0.2] = 0.20 Rule(5) : [SM(JR)0.25PS(M)0.4] = 0.25 Rule(6) : [SM(H)0.5 PS(M)0.4] = 0.40 Computation of output crisp value (Defuzzification) Using MAX Method (maximum value of outcome of Rule 3, 4, 5&6), the maximum membership value will be = [0.2, 0.2, 0.25, 0.4] 0.4 (7)

Figure 5: Membership function for plant size.

2) Output Variable: a) Operating Time of Pump (0-1 hour) OT(S) OT(M) OT(H) : : : trapmf (5%) trapmf (50%) trapf (90%)

Time of operation = Max. Value (i.e. Eq.7) x Range (Max.-Min.) OT

1st Intl Conf. on Recent Advances in Information Technology | RAIT-2012 |

= 0.4 X (1-0 hr). = 40% Centre of Gravity (COG) Method i.e, i (i ) (i ) Where, i ithMembership

(8)

(i )

Membership Value

Figure 7(c): Membership function for output variable operating time.

Substituting the value in equation (8):

0.2 OT(H) OT(H) OT(M) OT(S) +0.2 +0.25 +0.2 R(3) R(2) R(5) R 6 0.2+0.2+0.25+0.4

= 0.4047 = 40.47% Where, OT (H)/R (3) indicate the value of output variable OT (Fig.7) as per statement of R(3) (i.e. OT(H) = 90% or 0.9)and so on. Time of operation = Value of Eq.(8) x Range (Max. OT - Min.OT) = 0.4047(1 hr - 0 hr) = 40.47 %

Figure7(d): Fuzzy rule viewer.

VII. SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The computed data for the given conditions under case study of project and the desired results have been validated with MATLAB. The simulation results are shown in Figure 7(a), (b), (c), (d) and

From the images, it is revealed that the output simulated results are very close to computed value. The results have been verified for all possible simulated value of input variables i.e. plant size and soil moisture level. The simulated result of output data i.e time required to operate the pump was compared with computed value. VIII. WORKING ECONOMY The cost of the proposed solar powered pumping system has been estimated and reflected in Table 1.
TABLE I. Estimated cost of the proposed system S. No Item(s) Capacity Amount 1 PV Panel 2x75W Rs 25,000 2 Battery 150 Ah Rs 10,000 3 SOLAR Inverter 750 VA Rs 5,000 4 Maintenance per year Rs 1,000 5 System control unit Minimum Rs 5,000 Total Rs 46,000

IX. IMPACT OF SOLAR POWERED PUMPING SYSTEM: A CASE STUDY

Figure 7(a): Membership function for input variable- plant size.

A solar powered pumping system based irrigation system can bring many developments in a village. In India many such systems have been installed and are being used in different parts of the country in various remote areas of villages. The government has taken many initiatives to promote such schemes. The result is encouraging in one of the village in Punjab state of India shown in Figure 8 [6]. The potential youth are not only getting self employment in their village itself but also migration rate of youth has reduced to a great extent. The economic status of their family has also increased due to better crop production.

Figure 7(b): Membership function for input variable soil moisture.

1st Intl Conf. on Recent Advances in Information Technology | RAIT-2012 |

Figure 8: A solar panel for irrigation pump controller installed in village area of Punjab district of India

X. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK The research for the development of the fuzzy logic and the model is tested with varying inputs. The development of the Fuzzy logic for the process control is one of the best ways for the automation agriculturist to build the irrigation controller by himself based on his professional and experience in the field where unpredictable conditions are encountered by them during the growth of plants. The application of fuzzy logic controller is to automatically achieve and maintain some desired state of a system and process by monitoring system variables as well as taking appropriate control action. In the proposed system, an attempt has been made to develop simple water sprinkling irrigation controller for remote Indian villages to cultivate green vegetable plants like tomato etc. The status of any

agriculture field, in terms of moisture in the soil which vary due to heat, wind velocity and plant size has to be maintained.The decision has to be made to determine the amount of water to be sprinkled required for the area of land to be irrigated well in advance. The use of solar energy for generation of electricity for pump in place of DG operated pumping system. This has preserved the environment from pollution. This leads to the effective utilization of various resources like water and electricity and hence the system becomes a cost effective for the expected optimal yield and also preserves the nature. Soil model can be developed and the behaviour of the proposed model can further be analysed as a future scope of work in this field. REFERENCES
[1] [2] [3] [4] Burman R., Pochop L.O., 1994. Evaporation, Evapotranspiration and Climatic Data. Elsevier, Amsterdam. Klir, G.J., Yuan, B., 1995. Fuzy sets and Fuzzy Logic, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliff, NJ. Rashid M.H, Power electronic & circuit devices and applications, Prentice Hall Inc 1988. S.N.Singh, A.K.Singh Modeling and dynamics of a PWM sinusoidal Inverter for water pumping system for use in agriculture and household application, Journal of ieema Jan (2008), pp 114-122. S.N.Singh et al, A novel design of sustainable solar home lighting : a case study with Indian restaurant, IJEST Vol 3, Jan 2011, pp 346353. www.radhasolar.com

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