SCOPES AND LIMITATIONS OF THE PROJECT

The following aspects were considered in the choice of a design solution:

·         Installation costs

·         Water savings

·         Human intervention

·         Reliability

·         Power consumption

·         Maintenance

A critical consideration is the installation costs, since costs generally determine the feasibility and viability of a project. The installation must be simple enough for a domestic user. The water savings was also an important aspect, since there is a demand to minimize water loss and to maximize the efficiency of the water used. The system must operate with optimized consistency. The power consumption must also be monitored. For maintenance, the replacement parts must be readily available and easy to install in case of failure. 

SIGNIFICANT OF THE PROJECT

·         Decrease in water input. If the water used depends only on the actual consumption of the plants and no water is wasted, one should observe a decrease in the water input. In the future, this can be translated into money savings.

·         Reduced labour. Once the system is installed, the required labour will be limited to refilling the water supply periodically. This is the first aspect implied by full automation

·         Reduced monitoring. The control will necessitate only minimal human surveillance (e.g. once a day to verify the state of the system). This is the second aspect of full automation.

OBJECTIVE

• To design a small-scale automated irrigation system for indoors that would use water in a more efficient way.
• To enhance the skill and knowledge on the use of microcontroller.
• To study and gain more knowledge about soil moisture sensor.
• To develop the prototype of the agricultural based system.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

• Wastage of water due to supply more than required.
• Not watering the plants whenever required.
• Irregular watering leads to mineral loss in the soil and might end up rotting the plants.
• Too much of watering and the plant end up dying.

INTRODUCTION

• Watering systems are more efficient than any other form of watering.
• Watering systems ease the burden of getting water to plants when they need it.
• Watering process have two important aspects that are knowing when to water the plant and how much to water it.
• The automatic plant watering system is created to help people water their plant easily.

EXAMPLE OF OTHER RELATED PROJECTS

INTELLIGENT AUTOMATIC PLANT IRRIGATION SYSTEM

The paper presented proposed an embedded system for automatic control of irrigation. You can water your plants regularly when you are out for vacation. The system has wireless sensor network for real-time sensing and control of an irrigation system. This system provides uniform and required level of water for the garden and it avoids water wastage. This system is intended to create an automated irrigation mechanism which turns the pumping motor ON and OFF on detecting the dampness content of the earth. In this embedded system we are interfacing Arduino board ATmega328 microcontroller through temperature sensor, soil moisture sensor and also interfacing to GSM. This paper of “Intelligent Automatic Plant Irrigation System” is implemented using the “ARDUINO” software and hardware using “Embedded C” along with the “ANDROID” for sending users command to the Ardunio for controlling the motor.

This proposed technique is designed to operate a water pump automatically based on the soil moisture sensor detection of sufficient water to the plant or in fields and also temperature sensor based fan speed control. The switching mechanism can be done automatically with the help of microcontroller using relays. The proposed controller eliminates the manual switching mechanism used by the farmers to ON/OFF the irrigation system. The system is also designed for temperature sensor based fan speed control. Integrating features of all the hardware components used have been developed in it. Presence of every module has been reasoned out and placed carefully, thus contributing to the best working of the unit. Secondly, using highly advanced IC’s with the help of growing technology, the paper has been successfully implemented.

AUTOMATIC IRRIGATION SYSTEM BASED ON RF MODULE

In this paper, the automatic irrigation system is based on ARMs and RF module. All the system will be setup using ARM and RF module. The most important factor of this system is RF module which is used to send and receiving the message to the controller. This system used three nodes which communicate each other and irrigate paddy field automatically. The aim of this project is to modernizing agriculture technology by programming components and built the necessary component for the system. The system is real time based and extracts the exact condition of paddy field. There is one central node used which to control other node. The main function of RF module is to pass the message to the node and operate the system.

This proposed model used ARM-LPC2148 which is fully based on RF Module. This project developed agriculture field and increase the growth of food production. This can also useful for increasing the economy and demand of food necessity.

AUTOMATIC CONTROL OF DRIP IRRIGATION SYSTEM & MONITORING OF SOIL BY WIRELESS

This paper reviews different monitoring systems and proposes an automatic monitoring system model using Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). Utilization of proper method of irrigation by drip is very reasonable and proficient. A various drip irrigation methods have been proposed, but they have been found to be very luxurious and dense to use. The farmer has to maintain watch on irrigation schedule in the conventional drip irrigation system, which is different for different types of crops. In remotely monitored embedded system for irrigation purposes have become a new essential for farmer to accumulate his energy, time and money and will take place only when there will be requirement of water. In this approach, the soil test for chemical constituents, water content, and salinity and fertilizer requirement data collected by wireless and processed for better drip irrigation plan. ZigBee or Hotspot based remote control and monitoring system with automatic irrigation management is proposed in this project.

The modern use of electronic, electrical, chemical and mechanical systems will be very advantages for better agricultural output. Preservation of water sources and minimizing the use of inorganic fertilizer are possible with these methods. Use of bio-fertilizer in appropriate manner will find better guiding parameters through the various sensing methods. In this age of population explosion the huge demand of food can be met with this state of the art process.

BLOCK DIAGRAM

The block diagram of this automatic plant watering system divided into three main components namely a controller, a motor and a sensor. 

Soil moisture sensors will be use in this project because it can measure the water content in soil.

For the controller, there are two types of it that can be use in this project that are Arduino and 8051 Microcontroller.

Water pump runs with electrical motor. The water pump is used to artificially supply water for a particular task.

Finally, the condition of the motor and soil are displayed in the LCD display.