ISSN 2319-8885

Vol.05,Issue.22
August-2016,
Pages:4461-4465
www.ijsetr.com

Smart Drip Irrigation System using Raspberry Pi and Arduino

K. SRILEKHA1, TEJASWI2
1
Assistant Professor, Dept of ECE, SRCW, Nizamabad, TS, India, E-mail: srilekha402@gmail.com.
2
PG Scholar, Dept of ECE(ES), SRCW, Nizamabad, TS, India, E-mail: tejuvallabha@gmail.com.

Abstract: This paper proposes a design for home automation system using ready-to-use, cost effective and energy efficient
devices including raspberry pi, arduino microcontrollers, xbee modules and relay boards. Use of these components results in
overall cost effective, scalable and robust implementation of system. The sensor data were uploaded in to cloud by raspberry pi
using python programming language. Arduino microcontrollers used to transmit the sensor data to the raspberry pi using zigbee
protocol. Star zigbee topology serves as backbone for the communication between raspberry pi and end devices. Raspberry pi
acts a central coordinator and end devices act as various routers. Low-cost and energy efficient drip irrigation system serves as a
proof of concept. The design can be used in big agriculture fields as well as in small gardens and water plants. The use of
ultrasound sensors and solenoid valves make a smart drip irrigation system. The paper explains the complete installation of the
system including hardware and software aspects. Experimental set-up is also tested and explained for an automatic drip irrigation
system to water 50 pots.

Keywords: Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Xbee, Zigbee, Automatic Drip Irrigation System.

I. INTRODUCTION
The requirement of building an automation system for an
office or home is increasing day-by-day. Industrialist and
researchers are working to build efficient and economic
automatic systems to control different machines like lights,
fans, air conditioners based on the requirement. Automation
makes an efficient use of the electricity and water and
reduces much of the wastage. Drip irrigation system makes
the efficient use of water and fertilizer. Water is slowly
dripped to the roots of the plants through narrow tubes and
valves. Water is fed directly to the base of the plants which is
a perfect way to water plants. There should be proper
drainage in the fields or pot plants to avoid any water logging
which in case may affect the productivity. There already exist
automatic drip irrigation systems which water plants based
on soil humidity, pH value of soil, temperature and light.
These parameters are required in big agricultural fields where
productivity of the crop matters. In small areas like office
premises, buildings, house gardens etc. where watering plants
at regular interval matters, our proposed irrigation system
will be very efficient. In the above scenario irrigation system
parameters are uploaded in to cloud Think speak using WIFI,
that means monitoring and controlling done by automation.
This system is for irrigation system is done automation and
environmental parameters are monitor by an always stay at
web server on PC, and he monitors continuously.
In my system, no need to monitor or control at a particular
place, you can go anywhere but still you can monitor the
environment parameters. In this system, Ive taken Raspberry
Pi(BCMBCM2837) and to monitor the environment variables
Ive taken different sensors that can detect the different
environmental parameters respectively. By the xbee
communication then sensor values are uploaded in to the
cloud and other end I have connected those sensors to with
ARDUINO and Controlling water pump based on
environmental parameters like temperature, rain fall, and soil
. In my proposed solution, I have connected sensors, water
motor and xbee is connected to the Raspberry Pi, by the
wireless using WIFI technology sensor data will be uploaded
in to cloud. This paper presents an smart drip irrigation
system to water plants with the use of devices like raspberry
pi, Arduino microcontrollers. Xbee is used to control the
system wirelessly while Python programming language is
used for automation purpose. This paper contributes an
efficient and fairly cheap automation irrigation system.
System once installed has no maintenance cost and is easy to
use. Environment parameters monitoring system based on
wireless communication technology has been developed to
control remotely, which realizes the measurement of
temperature, rain fall, soil parameters.
II. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
The system architecture of this proposed system is
following Figs.1 and 2.
Raspberry Pi END: Hardware implementation for This
proposed system is shown in above with the blocks.
Raspberry Pi is the processor and its relevant components.
The xbee is used for wireless communication and Wifi USB
module is interfaced to Raspberry PisUSB port for sensor
data is to upload into cloud.

Copyright @ 2016 IJSETR. All rights reserved.

 K. SRILEKHA, TEJASWI
Fig.1. Block Diagram Receiver side.
Fig.2. Block Diagram.
ARDUNO END: The sensor like temperature, soil, rainfall
sensor are interface to ARDUINO analog lines and water
pump is automation depends upon sensors parameters it
will get on/off and sensor data Will transmitted by the
wireless xbee communication.
III. IMPLEMENTATION
A. Hardware
In hardware implementation, Raspberry Pi& ARDUINO
plays a key role in monitoring and controlling the smart drip
irrigation system. The Raspberry Pi is a small computer,
same as the computers with which youre already familiar. It
uses a many different kinds of processors, so cant install
Microsoft Windows on it. But can install several versions of
the Linux operating system that appear and feel very much
like Windows. Simple to use but powerful, affordable and in
addition difficult to break, Raspberry Pi is the perfect device
for aspiring computer scientists. This small computer features
amazing HD (high-definition) quality, video playback, also
sports high quality audio and has the capability to play 3D
games. The device use the ARM processor which does nearly
all of the hard work in order to run the Raspberry Pi. The
overview of Raspberry Pi has shown below Fig.3.
Fig.3. Block Diagram.
International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Technology Research
Volume.05, IssueNo.22, August-2016, Pages: 4461-4465
GPIO: One powerful feature of the Raspberry Pi is the row
of GPIO (general purpose input/output) pins along the Top
edge of the board. These pins are physical interface between
the pi and the oust side world. At the simplest Level, you can
think of them as switches that you can turn on or off(input) or
that the pi can turn on or off(output).Of the 40 pins,26 are
GPIO pins and other are power and ground pins. You can
program the pins to interact in amazing ways with the real
world. Inputs dont have to come from a physical switch. It
could be input from a sensor or a signal from another
computer or device, for example. The output can also do
anything, from turning on LED to sending a signal or data to
another device. If the Raspberry Pi is on a network, you can
control devices that are attached to it from any where and
those devices can send data back. Connectivity and control of
physical devices over the internet is a powerful and exciting
thing, and Raspberry Pi is ideal for this.
Arduino: Arduino Uno is a microcontroller board based on
the ATmega328P. It has 14 digital input/output pins (of
which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, a 16
MHz quartz crystal, a USB connection, a power jack, an
ICSP header and a reset button. It contains everything needed
to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to a
computer with a USB cable or power it with a AC-to-DC
adapter .The Arduino which is used in below fig.4.
Fig.4.Rain Fall Sensor.
It's an open-source physical computing platform based on
a simple microcontroller board, and a development
environment for writing software for the board. Temperature
Sensor: The temperature sensor will give a variable output
voltage with respect to the temperature variation. LM-35 is
used as temperature sensor which is a precision integrated-
circuit temperature sensor, Calibrated directly in Celsius
(Centigrade), Linear + 10.0 mV/oC scale factor with
accuracy O.soC (at +25C) with rated for full -55 to +150C
range. Here we will set the minimum temperature value to
20 C and maximum temperature values to 30 C (for demo
purpose, in real time the settings will vary with respect to
plantation in the greenhouse). The Temperature Sensor which
I have used in this project has shown below Fig.5:
 Smart Drip Irrigation System using Raspberry Pi and Arduino
30% - 90% RH and accuracy is 5% RH (at +25C). In
normal condition the humidity will be around 50% to 70%. In
our module we will be setting minimum level to 50% and
maximum level to 65. The Soil Sensor which I have used in
this project has shown below Fig.7:

Fig.5. Temperature Sensor.

Rain Fall Sensor: The rain sensor module is an easy tool for
rain detection. It can be used as a switch when raindrop falls
through the raining board and also for measuring rainfall
intensity. The module features, a rain board and the control
board that is separate for more convenience, power indicator
LED and an adjustable sensitivity though a potentiometer.
The analog output is used in detection of drops in the amount
of rainfall. Connected to 5V power supply, the LED will turn
on when induction board has no rain drop, and DO output is
high. When dropping a little amount water, DO output is low,
the switch indicator will turn on. Brush off the water
droplets, and when restored to the initial state, outputs high
level. Adopts high quality of RF-04 double sided material.
Area: 5cm x 4cm nickel plate on side. Anti-oxidation, anti-
conductivity, with long use time. Comparator output signal
clean waveform is good, driving ability, over 15mA.
Potentiometer adjust the sensitivity Output format: Digital
switching output (0 and 1) and analog voltage output AO.
The Rain Fall Sensor which I have used in this project has
shown below Fig.6:
Fig.7.Soil Sensor.
Xbee: xbee is an IEEE 802.15.4 standard for data
communications with business and consumer devices. It is
designed around low-power consumption allowing batteries
to essentially last forever. The xbee standard provides
network, security and application support services operating
on top of the IEEE 802.15.4 Medium Access Control (MAC)
and Physical Layer (PHY) wireless standard. It employs a
suite of technologies to enable scalable, self-organizing, self-
healing networks that can manage various data traffic
patterns. The xbee which have used in project is shown in
fig.8.

Fig.8.xbee Pin diagram.

Xbee is a low-cost, low-power, wireless mesh networking

standard. The low cost allows the technology to be widely
deployed in wireless control and monitoring applications, the
low power-usage allows longer life with smaller batteries and
the mesh networking provides high reliability and larger
range. ZigBee/IEEE 802.15.4 - General Characteristics
Dual PHY (2.4GHz and 868/915 MHz)
Data rates of 250 kbps (@2.4 GHz), 40 kbps (@ 915
MHz), and 20 kbps (@868 MHz)
Optimized for low duty-cycle applications (<0.1%)
CSMA-CA channel access
Fig.6. RainFall Sensor. Yields high throughput and low latency for low duty
cycle devices like sensors and controls
Soil Sensor: soil is the quantity of water content in Low power (battery life multi-month to years)
atmosphere. The sensor output will be a variable voltage with Multiple topologies: star, peer-to-peer, mesh
respect to the soil level. Soil sensor will be measured in Addressing space of up to:
percentage. The SY-HS-22 sensor is used which converts 18,450,000,000,000,000,000devices(64bit IEEE address)
relative to the output voltage with operating sensor range 65,535 networks
International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Technology Research
Volume.05, IssueNo.22, August-2016, Pages: 4461-4465
 K. SRILEKHA, TEJASWI
Optional guaranteed time slot for applications requiring Receiver:
low latency Step 1: Initialize RPI.
Fully hand-shaked protocol for transfer reliability Step 2: Taking sensor reading by using xbee .
Range: 50m typical (5-500m based on environment) Step 3: uploaded in to cloud server.

Software: Here, to program Raspberry Python was used. Flowchart: The flowchart of this paper is shown below
And a Sever as Think speak server. Final Schematic Diagram Fig.11.
of this Project has shown below Figs.9 and 10:

Fig.9. Transmitter side.

Fig.11. Flow Chart.

V. RESULTS
Results of this paper is as shown in bellow Figs.12 to 16.

Fig.10. Receiver side.

IV. ALGORITHM & FLOWCHART

Algorithm:
Transmitter:
Step 1: Initialize Arduino.
Step 2: Taking sensor reading from Arduino and sending
by xbee.
Step 3: Depends up on temperature and soil sensor water
pump will ON.
Step 4: Depends up on rain fall sensor Water Pump will
ON/OFF . Fig.12. Final Prototype.
Step 5:Sensors data pushing from Arduino.
International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Technology Research
Volume.05, IssueNo.22, August-2016, Pages: 4461-4465
 Smart Drip Irrigation System using Raspberry Pi and Arduino
VI. CONCLUSION
This Smart drip irrigation proves to be the system
automates for irrigation system and regulates water for
irrigation is done without manual Using this system, solenoid
valves and relay board can be controlled remotely which
opens the opportunities to control the water flow as well as
the electrical flow. Irrigation system is automated with
depends on sensor Report the pump is operated by the
weather condition by soil, rain and temperature conditions
the water pump will work and by wireless xbee the data is
communicate and the sensor readings are uploaded into cloud
network by Wifi technology.

Fig. 13. Login into Raspberry Pi. VII. REFERENCES

[1]http://www.engineersgarage.com/arm-
projects/introduction-to-arm-microcontroller-RaspberryPi.
[2]B.Johnson, How the Raspberrypi works Internet:
computer.howstuffworks.com/raspberry-pi1.htm.
[3]http://www.nex-robotics.com/RaspberryPi-development-
board/RaspberryPi-development-board.html.
[4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature-sensor.
[5]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/soil-sensor.
[6]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain fall-sensor.

Authors Profile:
K.Srilekha who has specialization in
M.Tech (VLSISD) and working as an
Assistant professor at SRCW and her areas
Fig. 14. Temperature sensor graph on think speak. of interest are VLSI, and Embedded
Systems.

Tejaswi, who has specialization in ES &

VLSI and currently an M.Tech Student of
Department of ECE, SRCW.

Fig .15. Rain fall sensor graph on think speak.

Fig. 16. Soil sensor graph on think speak.

International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Technology Research
Volume.05, IssueNo.22, August-2016, Pages: 4461-4465