2017 2nd IEEE International Conference On Recent Trends in Electronics Information & Communication Technology (RTEICT), May 19-20,
2017, India
IoT Based Smart Irrigation Monitoring And
Controlling System
Shweta B. Saraf
NBN Sinhgad School of Engineering,
gujrathishweta1@gmail.com,
Abstract— Interconnection of number of devices through
internet describes the Internet of things (IoT). Every object is
connected with each other through unique identifier so that data
can be transferred without human to human interaction. It
allows establishing solutions for better management of natural
resources. The smart objects embedded with sensors enables
interaction with the physical and logical worlds according to the
concept of IoT. In this paper proposed system is based on IoT
that uses real time input data. Smart farm irrigation system uses
android phone for remote monitoring and controlling of drips
through wireless sensor network. Zigbee is used for
communication between sensor nodes and base station. Real time
sensed data handling and demonstration on the server is
accomplished using web based java graphical user interface.
Wireless monitoring of field irrigation system reduces human
intervention and allows remote monitoring and controlling on
android phone. Cloud Computing is an attractive solution to the
large amount of data generated by the wireless sensor network.
This paper proposes and evaluates a cloud-based wireless
communication system to monitor and control a set of sensors
and actuators to assess the plants water need.
Keywords— IoT, wireless sensor network, cloud computing,
irrigation.
I. INTRODUCTION
Agriculture is the strength of Indian Economy.
However, for agriculture water consumption is more than
rainfall every year. Improving farm yield is essential to meet
the rapidly growing demand of food for population growth
across the world. By considering and predicting ecological
circumstances, farm productivity can be increased. Crop
quality is based on data collected from field such as soil
moisture, ambient temperature and humidity etc. Advanced
tools and technology can be used to increase farm yield.
Developing IoT technologies can help to collect large amount
of ecological and crop recital data. “IoT encompasses many
new intelligent concepts for using in the near future such as
smart home, smart city, smart transportation, and smart
farming” [1]. The technique can be used for application of
accurate amount of fertilizer, water, pesticide etc. to enhance
productivity and excellence. Sensors are hopeful device for
smart agriculture. The real-time environmental parameters like
soil moisture level, ambient temperature and tank water level
have continuous influence on the crop lifecycle. By forming
sensor network, good monitoring of water regulation in the
agriculture field can be achieved.
This paper presents irrigation monitoring and
controlling system. The system uses the wireless sensor
network to monitor the environmental conditions such as
temperature, soil moisture content, humidity and water level of
agriculture land for controlling the irrigation. The system has
978-1-5090-3704-9/17/$31.00 © 2017 IEEE
815
Dhanashri H. Gawali
NBN Sinhgad School of Engineering,
dhanashree.gawali@gmail.com
automatic and manual mode. The real time sensed data is
stored on the cloud server for decision making and controlling
actions. The user can monitor the controlling actions taken at
the farm as well as control the irrigation via android app on
farmer’s mobile phone.
II. RELATED WORK
Plenty of research work has been done to improve the
performance of agriculture field. In [1] the system uses arduino
technology to control watering and roofing of the green house.
It uses statistical data acquired from sensors (like temperature,
humidity, moisture and light intensity sensors) compared with
the weather forecast for decision making. Kalman filter is used
to eliminate noise from the sensors. Agriculture System
(AgriSys) [2] uses temperature, pH, humidity sensors and the
fuzzy inference to input the data from sensors. The system
monitors the sensors information on LCD and PC. In [3]
Wireless sensing Network with ZigBee technology helps to
control air humidity, soil moisture and temperature. System is
implemented with components as soil moisture sensor,
humidity sensor, temperature sensor, ZigBee, 18F458 PIC
Microcontroller, water pump, fan, relay and buzzer. In paper
[4], wireless sensor network is integrated with ZigBee to
transmit soil moisture level and temperature values. The data is
transmitted to a web server using GPRS through cellular
network. The data monitoring can be achieved via internet
using graphical application. In [5] the paper explains wireless
sensor network for sensing soil moisture level, temperature and
relative humidity values. Network lifetime of the node is
increased by using sleep - wake up plan. The system in this
paper implements clustering of nodes. Graphical user interface
(GUI) is designed in MATLAB for data handling. The paper
[6] defines automation for remote agriculture having sensors
and actuators connected to IoT gateway running OPC UA
server. Cloud services (installing or configuring process
controller) are used to change the control rules without
updating firmware of remote sensors/actuators. In[7] WSNs
integration with Cloud Computing is described. It provides
performance comparison guideline for integrating WSN with
Cloud Computing to improve performance and to overcome
storage and energy constraints of WSN.
All the systems described above are similar in the
context of wireless sensor node. The difference lies regarding
the communication technologies and the storage of data
collected from the nodes. Generally systems use one or more
servers to store the collected data. When the quantity of nodes
is increased, servers will need more space for storage, resulting
in increased cost. This paper proposes irrigation system which
describes the combination of the wireless sensor network, IoT
 2017 2nd IEEE International Conference On Recent Trends in Electronics Information & Communication Technology (RTEICT), May 19-20, 2017, India

communication technology and cloud server to accomplish

performance of system and data storage. The proposed system
provides remote monitoring and controlling of irrigation with
real time sensing of atmospheric and soil conditions like air
temperature, humidity and soil moisture. IoT based irrigation
improves farm production without any human interference.
III. IOT CONTEXT FOR SMART IRRIGATION
Along with various IoT application areas agriculture
includes cultivation and water management. A wide range of
sensors can be used for agricultural applications, viz. leaf
wetness, soil moisture, temperature, humidity, ultraviolet and
solar radiations, wind vanes, pluviometer, etc. IOT comprises
of deployment of sensors at the respective application fields
and storage of their data cloud for processing. The same
concept can be used for irrigation system for monitoring and
controlling. There are various communication technologies for
IoT. “Various WSN solutions have been proposed based on
IEEE 802.15.4 standards, e.g. ZigBee, 6LoWPAN, etc" [8].
The IoT architecture includes sensors and actuators connected
to IoT gateway via various local wireless network. The other
side of the gateway is connected to IP based wireless actuator
network and can be accessed from Cloud systems. Controller
algorithm is required to run on IoT gateway.
IV. NECESSITY TO USE CLOUD
Formation of WSN simulation environment requires
consideration of many things viz suitable operating system,
adequate RAM requirements and storage. Also host computer
has to be run for a long duration continuously. A virtual
platform is required to fulfill above requirements that is cloud
based. “Sensefinity Machinates cloud platform, besides storing
all the measurements received from WSN, is also responsible
for: data sources identification, performing data validation,
partitioning, and processing. The later includes running the
irrigation algorithm for detecting whenever the plants need
irrigation” [9]. The cloud storage usage provides advantages as
1) Data can be accessed from anywhere. 2) Hardware
requirement and cost reduces. 3) Security of data increases.
V. PROPOSED SYSTEM
The proposed system helps user to improve quality and
quantity of their farm yield by sensing ambient temperature and
humidity values, soil moisture value and water level of the tank
from the field without any human intervention. By using the
concept of IoT system can be more efficient. The system
contains wireless sensor units node1 and node2 as shown in
fig.1 placed in the field to acquire the real time values, a master
node to receive and transmit acquired information to the
control section, and a control section which controls the drips
for watering subsystem. Each node includes temperature,
humidity, soil moisture and water level sensors as well as
microcontroller and relay switching unit. The sensed data from
each node is transmitted to the master node via zigbee. The
received data from the master node is stored at the cloud server.
The cloud server performs decision making by comparing
between sensed values and predefined threshold values as per
crop selection. Once the data is processed and decision is
determined at the control section with the help of irrigation
Figure1. Proposed System Overview
algorithm, the controlling action is sent to wireless sensor node.
The microcontroller from the node controls relay switching unit
and watering subsystem accordingly. Report system that is an
android application is developed to deliver recent field
information to user. Also it asks user to respond to an essential
incident such as rise in temperature and water requirement for
plants.
This architecture is designed using arduino technology
to provide scalability for network. It uses AtMega 328
microcontroller at each node. The irrigation system is
optimized in order to provide irrigation efficiency which will
allow saving water as well as improving the crop quality. The
system offers following advantages.
x Smart irrigation system can enhance crop quality and
yield with the help of sensing parameters like, soil
moisture, air temperature, humidity and water level of
the tank.
x Using irrigation algorithm the control section informs
the wireless sensor node whether to start or stop
watering.
x The system monitors water level of the tank via water
level sensor so that if water level is below bottom then
irrigation will not be started.
x Remote monitoring and controlling avoids human
intervention.
x Reduction in water consumption reduces the power
consumption and cost.
The system consists of following blocks.
A. Wireless sensor Node and Control section
Fig 2 shows wireless sensor node and control section. It
consists of DHT11 ambient temperature and humidity sensor,
LM 393 soil moisture and M116 water level sensors,
AtMega328 microcontroller, zigbee transceiver and relay
switching unit. Data acquired by sensors is processed by
microcontroller and transferred to the zigbee for transmission.
The threshold values of soil moisture and ambient temperature
are set according to the crop selection. The microcontroller
processes control action taken by the server resulting in
controlling the irrigation.

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 2017 2nd IEEE International Conference On Recent Trends in Electronics Information & Communication Technology (RTEICT), May 19-20, 2017, India
B. Master node
Master node receives data transmitted from all the wireless
Figure 2. Block Diagram of Wireless Sensor Node
sensor nodes via zigbee receiver. The received data is
transferred to the cloud server via internet for handling to
compute final values. Master node receives controlling action
from cloud server and transmits it to the respective node. The
microcontroller at respective node executes action received
from master node.
C. Control Section
The decision for controlling action is taken at cloud server
and the corresponding action is performed at the node. Fig. 3
shows the cloud server with android application. The decision
making is based on comparison between sensed values (of soil
moisture, air temperature, tank water level) and respective
threshold values. Master node receives the control command
from the cloud and transmits it to the node which performs the
corresponding action. Thus system automatically controls drip
irrigation depending on decision from the real time values.
Irrigation Algorithm
Besides storing all the measurements received from the
WSN, the cloud platform is also responsible to detect whenever
the plants need irrigation as well as sending messages to the
wireless sensor node in order to activate or deactivate the
irrigation system. This decision making is performed through
817
Figure 3. Cloud Server with Android App
distinct pieces of information: the air temperature, soil
moisture, water level and humidity measurements of WSN
nodes.
All sensing nodes comprised in the WSN send soil moisture
measurements frequently, which will help the algorithm taking
decisions concerning the need for irrigation. When a soil
moisture message of any node has a value below the defined
threshold, the algorithm will read the values of ambient
temperature and humidity next 4 hours, in order to decide
whether to irrigate or not. The cloud is also responsible for
finding the right moment to stop the irrigation. For that,
whenever all soil moisture sensor of the network assumes a soil
moisture value larger or equal to the defined threshold will
specify the end of the irrigation. When this condition is
assured, the cloud sends a message to the WSN which contains
an instruction to stop the irrigation.
According to the type of crops, the threshold levels for
soil moisture and air temperature can be varied. Accordingly
the duration as well as frequency for watering can be changed.
When the wireless sensor node is integrated with the
cloud server the irrigation control decision will be taken at the
server side.
VI. SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION AND RESULTS
System consists of combination of hardware and software.
The hardware prototype is shown in fig. 5. It consists of
wireless sensor node1 and node 2. The sensed data from node1
and node 2 is transmitted to master node via zigbee. The real
time sensed data received by master node is shown in fig. 6
and 7 which is stored at the cloud for further decision making.
 2017 2nd IEEE International Conference On Recent Trends in Electronics Information & Communication Technology (RTEICT), May 19-20, 2017, India
Figure 4. Flowchart of irrigation algorithm
Figure 5. System Prototype
(1-Node1, 2- Node 2, 3-AtMega328 microcontroller, 4-Relay,5-DHT 11
Temperature and Humidity sensor, 6-Water Level Sensor, 7- LM 393
Moisture Sensor, 8-Zigbee module 1, 9-Zigbee module 2.)
Fig 6 and 7 shows the sensed data from temperature,
humidity, soil moisture and water level sensors transmitted by
818
zigbee from node 1and node 2, received at the master node.
Master node stores that data to the cloud server.
The system uses Apache Tomcat HTTP web server
hosted on the cloud server. The web server is used to monitor
and store real time sensed data from master node. Fig 8 shows
the real time sensors data from node1 and node2 stored at the
web server.
Figure 6. Node 1 data from at the master node
Figure 7. Node 2 data at the master node
Figure 8. Real time sensed data displayed on web server
VII. MOBILE APPLICATION
The android mobile application is used to give users a
textual and graphical representation of the information acquired
by the wireless sensor network, which is stored in the cloud
platform. This representation includes readings of each sensor
as well as the irrigation periods. Mobile application also
provides alerts to the user for application of fertilizers and
pesticides depending upon crop selection.
 2017 2nd IEEE International Conference On Recent Trends in Electronics Information & Communication Technology (RTEICT), May 19-20, 2017, India
CONCLUSION
The study and analysis related to the interconnected
field studies of Internet of Things, Machine-to-Machine and
Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks, it was possible to
identify that there are various developments in the last couple
of years, there is still problem to address regarding the
generated and collected data. Being cloud computing a recent
resource providing approach, the main work developed within
the context of the paradigms presented above was not properly
integrated with the possibilities that a cloud computing
platform could offer. The system proposed in this paper, aims
to lead to the combination of such systems with the attractive
features offered by cloud computing. This integration could be
applied to the agricultural applications. The automated
irrigation system presented in this work was found more viable,
and can manage irrigation water supply more effectively. It
helps to optimize the use of water for irrigation purpose. It
shows that water consumption is reduced with the
implementation of soil-moisture based automated irrigation
system.
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