2016 IEEE International Conference on Technological Innovations in ICT For Agriculture and Rural Development

(TIAR 2016)

AUTOMATIC CONTROL OF
IRRIGATION SYSTEM IN PADDY USING
WSN
A. Sathya1, B. Arthi2, S. Giridharan3, M. Karvendan4, J. Kishore5
1,2
Assistant Professor, Department of Information Technology, Easwari Engineering College, Chennai-
600089.,arunachalam.sathya@gmail.com, arthi1981@gmail.com
3,4,5
Student, Department of Information Technology, Easwari Engineering College, Chennai-
600089,.giridharangiri95@yahoo.com, karvendanajay@gmail.com, kishorejraina@gmail.com.

Abstract— An automated water irrigation system to II. THE RELATED WORK

improve the efficient use of water. Water level sensors
and moisture sensors are placed in the fields to measure
the water level and moisture of soil in the field. The
system automatically irrigates the field through the
entrance valve when the water level is lower than the
threshold level and also according to the moisture of the
soil. The entrance valve closes after the water level
reaches the threshold level and also the GSM modem
sends SMS about the time taken to fill the farm with
water to the farmer. In the existing system the farmer
has to direct the water towards the desired farm
manually. Farmer needs to go directly to the field to
direct the water to the next farm. Farmers have to
monitor the water level continuously to direct the flow
of water. The proposed system guarantees the efficient
usage of water and also prevents the damage of crops
due to overflow of water.
I. INTRODUCTION
In a developing country like India, Agriculture
plays a major role in its economy. With the advanced
technologies, some of the traditional techniques in
the Agriculture can be automated to increase the
productivity and also the efficient usage of the
resources. This Project presents a method to automate
the control of direction of water flow in the paddy
fields. In the present system, farmers need to go
directly to the field to make the path to direct the
water to the next farm. This needs more man power
and also leads to wastage of water. This proposed
system uses the water level sensors and moisture
sensors to measure the water level and the moisture
level in the fields for controlling the valves which
directs the water flow in the fields. ZigBee is used to
transmit the measured values to the PIC
microcontroller, which compares the measured
values against the stored threshold values to control
the valve operations. When the water gets filled and
directed to next farm the microcontroller signals the
GSM modem to send SMS to the farmer about the
time took to fill first farm.
[1] In this paper, Soil moisture and temperature
sensor are buried at the root zone of the plant. Owing
to different climatic condition, Rain water sensor is
located at the surface of the soil to deactivate the
entire irrigation system during rainy season. The PIC
microcontroller is used to gather the sensor
information in real time. The data can be acquired
and processed by sending and receiving the
information from cultivation field. The measured data
is allowed for data inspection with cellular internet
interface to be graphically visualized through GPRS
module. The whole irrigation system is powered by
solar photovoltaic panel with battery power
management system. The automated irrigation
system is tested in turmeric and onion plantation
simultaneously for 50 days. Water savings is up to
90% when compared with the present trickle
irrigation channel is achieved. By incorporating the
automated irrigation scheme, consumption of water
and electricity is reduced, further it increases the
quality of food grains and the yield of crops. [2] This
paper describes the automated system to make
effective utilization of water resources for agriculture
and crop growth monitoring using GSM. The
effective utilization of drip irrigation process is
improved by using the signals obtained from soil
moisture sensor. The output signals of the sensors are
coordinated by the microcontroller and transmitted to
the user with the help of GSM Modem. This method
has led to severe drawbacks like under irrigation,
over-irrigation which in turn causes leaching and loss
of nutrient content of soil. The optimized water use
for an agriculture crops has been achieved
successfully by this system. The system that can
report data to the cultivator remotely and allows to
control the process effectively with GSM. [3] This
paper proposed a system where the farmer has the
ability to Monitor the Sensors information at his/her
home, the sensor information displays on the master

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2016 IEEE International Conference on Technological Innovations in ICT For Agriculture and Rural Development
(TIAR 2016)

node LCD as well as PC. The farmer can set crop

type such as Wheat, Rice, Jowar and Bajara in the
master node. Moisture, temperature and humidity
value required for a particular crop are set in the
microcontroller as a threshold value. Soil moisture,
temperature and humidity sensor fixed in the field
sense the actual values. These values are compared
with the threshold values. If the actual value crosses
the threshold values then corresponding pump, fan or
Buzzer switched ON. The Farmer pressed his or her
choice as 1 in master node, crop type rice is selected,
then actual values of moisture, temperature and Fig 1. Architecture of the proposed automatic
humidity for rice will be displayed on master node as irrigation system in paddy
well as computer and compare it and automatically
perform the operation, same process will have been III. ARCHITECTURE
done for remaining crops type such as Wheat, Jawar,
Bajra. [4] This paper proposed an automated closed- Architecture Overview
loop irrigation system which consists of three major
components: machine conversion, navigation, and The main components of the system are
mission planning to support the solid communication
protocol. It developed the machine conversion from a  Moisture sensor
conventional irrigation system to an electronically 
controllable system for individual control of  Water level sensor
irrigation sprinklers and formulated the navigation of 
the irrigation system that was continuously monitored  Microcontroller
by a differential GPS and wirelessly transferred data 
to a base station for site-specific irrigation control. It  ZigBee
also provided extensive details for the wireless

communication interface of sensors from in-field
 Solenoid valve
sensor stations and for a programmable logic

controller from a control station to the computer at a
base station. Bluetooth wireless technology offered a  GSM Modem
plug-and-play communication module and saved 
significant time and expense by using commercially 
available sensors and controllers equipped with serial 
communication ports. Stable wireless signal A. Moisture Sensor
connectivity was achieved by power management
circuit design and antennas at 1-m above the plant The Moisture Sensor measures the moisture
canopies. The development of WISC software value in the soil and sends the values to the PIC
provided real-time remote monitoring and control of Microcontroller via ZigBee. This value is useful for
variable rate irrigation, and continued decision the microcontroller to take decision on opening and
making of mission planning for the automated closing the solenoid valve.
closed-loop irrigation system. It proved a concept of
a promising low-cost wireless solution for an in-field B. Water Level Sensor
WSN and remote control of precision irrigation.
Potential applications of Bluetooth wireless The Water Level Sensor measures the water
technology in agricultural systems can be extended to level in the paddy field and sends it to the
real time field monitoring, automated irrigation microcontroller. These values are also useful for the
control, and remote operation of field machinery. control of the valves.

C. Microcontroller

The PIC Microcontroller is used process the

measured values and it compares the measured values
with the stored values. The Microcontroller controls
the Solenoid valves by comparing the measured

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2016 IEEE International Conference on Technological Innovations in ICT For Agriculture and Rural Development
(TIAR 2016)
values and the stored values. If the measured value
crosses the stored threshold values the
microcontroller sends signals to the solenoid valve to
close and if the measured value is less than the stored
threshold value, the microcontroller sends signal to
the solenoid valve to open. Hence this PIC
microcontroller is the heart of the system.
D. ZigBee
The ZigBee module is used to transmit the
measured values wirelessly to the microcontroller.
This module is primarily used for transmitting and
receiving the values using which the microcontroller
takes decision whether to open or close the valve.
E. Solenoid Valve
A solenoid valve is an electromechanical valve for
use with liquid. The valve is controlled by an electric
current through a solenoid: in the case of a two-port
valve the flow is switched on or off. In this system
the solenoid valve receives the electric pulse from the
microcontroller if valve has to open otherwise it
remains closed.
F. GSM Modem
A GSM modem is a wireless modem that works with
a GSM wireless network. A wireless modem behaves
like a dial-up modem. The main difference between
them is that a dial-up modem sends and receives data
through a fixed telephone line while a wireless
modem sends and receives data through radio waves.
In this system the GSM modem is to send SMS to the
mobile phone of the farmer about the time took for
the water to fill in the paddy field.
IV. RESULT
Fig 2. System hardware setup
The proposed system helps the farmers to
monitor the fields remotely and also control the
978-1-5090-0615-1/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
valves automatically. The farmer has to switch on the
motor simply and he doesn’t need to monitor the field
to direct the water flow. The system does this work of
the farmer automatically with the help of the sensors.
V. EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS
1. Initially, the moisture sensor measures the
moisture content in the soil and sends the values to
microcontroller via ZigBee.
2. The microcontroller compares the measured
moisture values with the stored threshold moisture
values.
3. If the measured moisture values are less than
the threshold value, the microcontroller sends the
electric pulse to the solenoid valve to open and water
flows inside the farm. If not, the valve remains
closed.
4. The water level sensor measures the water
level in the farm and sends it to the microcontroller.
5. The microcontroller compares the measured
water level values with the stored threshold water
level values.
6. If the measured water level value is less
than the threshold value, the solenoid valve remains
open and water flows continuously inside the farm. If
not, the microcontroller sends the electric pulse to the
solenoid valve to close.
7. When the solenoid valve closes, the
microcontroller sends the time took for the water to
fill in the paddy field to the GSM modem.
8. The GSM modem sends this information as
an SMS to the farmer’s mobile phone.
Fig 3. Comparison of existing and proposed system
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2016 IEEE International Conference on Technological Innovations in ICT For Agriculture and Rural Development
(TIAR 2016)

In the existing system, only the farmer has

to go to the farm to direct the water flow between the
farm. Hence it takes more time for the farmer to
complete this work for a whole paddy field.
In the proposed system, directing the water
flow is done by the solenoid valves with the help of
the sensors automatically. This saves time for the
farmer and also the manual work.

VI. CONCLUSION
In the proposed system, a new approach to
improve the irrigation system is stated. The proposed
system develops an automated irrigation system to
direct the water flow in the paddy fields. This system
uses water level sensors to identify the water level in
the field and also the moisture sensors to identify the
moisture level in the soil and change the flow of
water to the next farm accordingly. The water flow
between the farms is controlled by the valves. The
GSM modem sends SMS about the time taken to fill
the farm with water to the farmer.

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[2] K. S. V. Grace, S. Kharim, P. Sivasakthi (2015) ‘Wireless

Sensor Based Control System in Agriculture Field’, 2015 Global
Conference on Communication Technologies (GCCT), pp 823 –
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[3] B. Chikankar, D. Mehetre, S. Das (2015) ‘An Automatic

Irrigation System using ZigBee in Wireless Sensor Network’, 2015
International Conference on Pervasive Computing (ICPC), pp 1 – 5

[4] Y. Kim, R. G. Evans, W. M. Iversen (2011) ‘Remote

Sensing and Control of an Irrigation System Using a Distributed
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[5] J. Gutiérrez, J. F. Villa-Medina, A. Nieto-Garibay, M. Á Porta-

Gándara (2013) ‘Automated Irrigation System Using a Wireless
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