Intelligent irrigation system for agriculture

Smart irrigation systems, also known as intelligent agricultural irrigation systems, are a comprehensive solution proposed by Top IoT to achieve water conservation while ensuring sufficient water supply for crops. Simply put, smart irrigation systems automate agricultural irrigation, eliminating the need for manual control. The system automatically senses when irrigation is needed, for how long, and can automatically start and stop irrigation. It can also increase irrigation volume when the soil is too dry and reduce it when it's too wet.

I. Functional Design of Smart Irrigation Systems:

　　To achieve the above-mentioned functions, a smart agricultural irrigation system must make full use of the control capabilities of a programmable logic controller (PLC). To automatically sense soil moisture, a soil moisture sensor is required. To regulate the amount of irrigation water, a variable frequency drive (VFD) is necessary. The PLC pre-sets 50%-60% RH as the standard humidity. The analog signal of humidity collected by the sensor is converted into a digital signal via an A/D module.

　　Addressing the issue of low irrigation water use efficiency, this paper proposes an embedded intelligent irrigation control system. Leveraging a wireless sensor network to collect crop water requirement information from the irrigation area, this information is aggregated at the gateway node and sent to the main control center. The central host determines the irrigation status based on this information, calculates the irrigation volume, and controls the irrigation equipment to achieve intelligent irrigation. Through the Internet, administrators have the authority to remotely manage the system, meeting the needs of large-scale irrigation. Observations from the demonstration area show that the irrigation water use efficiency increased from 0.6 to 0.9. The system combines wireless sensing, computation, and network communication technologies, solving key technical problems in precision agriculture.

　　Smart irrigation systems involve various advanced technologies, including sensor technology, automatic control technology, computer technology, and wireless communication technology. The application of these new technologies has laid an important foundation for the transformation of China's agriculture from traditional labor-intensive to technology-intensive.

　　Agricultural irrigation systems can optimize water usage based on plant and soil types and sunlight levels, and can also monitor soil moisture after rain. Research shows that compared to traditional irrigation systems, smart irrigation systems have a similar cost but can save 16% to 30% of water.