Technique smart control soil moisture system to watering plant based on IoT with arduino uno

Bulletin of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
Vol. 9, No. 5, October 2020, pp. 2038~2044
ISSN: 2302-9285, DOI: 10.11591/eei.v9i5.1896  2038
Journal homepage: http://beei.org
Technique smart control soil moisture system to watering plant
based on IoT with arduino uno
Mohanad Ali Meteab Al-Obaidi1
, Muna Abdul Hussain Radhi2
, Rasha Shaker Ibrahim3
, Tole Sutikno4
1,2,3
Department of Computer Science, College of Science, Mustansiriya University, Baghdad, Iraq
4
Department of Electrical Engineering, Universitas Ahmad Dahlan, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
4
Embedded System and Power Electronics Research Group (ESPERG), Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Article Info ABSTRACT
Article history:
Received Nov 11, 2019
Revised Feb 6, 2020
Accepted Apr 23, 2020
Water scarcity has become the most important challenge facing the world
and a source of fear to the global community from the spread of famines due
to the lack of agricultural production. For this reason, researchers seek
to optimize the use of food resources, including water wealth. This project
contributes to the legalization of the use of water resources. One of these
methods is to solve the problem of a decrease in water resources, is drip
irrigation systems. An affordable system was developed using soil moisture
FC-28 hygrometer sensor compatible with arduino uno R3 and sending
electrical signals based on voltage difference due to increased or decreased
water in the soil to the monitor through the arduino for decision to operate
irrigation pumps. The system is controlled by a software that allows the user
to know the current state of the soil to choose the type of plant to determine
the amount of water and the possibility of adding new types of plants
to the program library and other features.
Keywords:
Arduino uno R3
Drip irrigation
FC-28 soil hygrometer
Volumetric sensors
Soil moisture sensors
This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA license.
Corresponding Author:
Mohanad Ali Meteab Al-Obaidi,
Dept. of Computer Science, College of Science,
Mustansiriya University, Baghdad, Iraq.
Email: Neros2210@uomustansiriyah.edu.iq
1. INTRODUCTION
The growth of crops depends on the availability of land and arable water and an increase
in investment in modern agricultural methods. Main challenges [1-6] that hamper agricultural development
around the world due to the scarcity of water resources [7, 8] due to major climate changes and offset by an
increase in the world's population and weak water consumption, which leads to increased demand for food.
Therefore, it requires research on water resources, recycling, appropriate use of water and improvement
of irrigation systems, including drip irrigation systems [9-11]. A drip irrigation system is an effective way
to provide water for both plants and seasonal field crops [12, 13]. Drip irrigation provides an opportunity
to flow water continuously and regularly [14-18], it also provides an opportunity for continuous flow
of water in addition to many advantages in reducing water consumption and ensuring equitable agricultural
distribution between plants, in light of humidity [19-21], temperature, agricultural soils and fertilizers
used [22, 23], also reduces traditional losses such as deep filtration, runoff and increased soil salinity [24-28].
The drip irrigation system is a solution to many problems in dryland cultivation and improving
the efficiency of agriculture through drip irrigation. The results showed that the majority of farmers
appreciated the benefits such as saving water, reducing the cost of workers, increasing agricultural production
and increasing its quality, simplifying the use of water, and limiting the spread of weeds [21, 29-32].

Bulletin of Electr Eng & Inf ISSN: 2302-9285 
Technique smart control soil moisture system to watering plant based on… (Mohanad Ali Meteab Al-Obaidi)
2039
Swapnali and other researchers in 2018 used soil moisture sensors to sense the temperature
and humidity, raspberry Pi with USB camera installed to surveillance the fields by internal network
system [33]. The researchers G. P. and K., in 2016 have been able to measure soil moisture and temperature
using moisture and temperature sensor. The drip irrigation valves open by a microcontroller. The irrigation
status is updated using the PC. LCD using to display soil PH, temperature and humidity [34] .
Kumar [16] in 2017 used the automatic plant irrigation system with arduino uno R3 and soil sensor
to the senses moisture level in the soil and sending a signal to the water pump for turn ON or OFF. Humidity
sensors were placed in two different places to measure humidity, and then the signal was transmitted
to the arduino to estimate the amount of water [35]. Some researchers in 2019 had built a system based on
microcontroller and soil moisture sensors. They used platform mobile to display moisture percentage data in
graphical form, if it was found that the percentage of soil moisture with an initial value of 30-35% increased
to 68.2%, so the system has open the valves to watering the plants [4]. Arduino uno, two humidity sensors,
submersible water pumps, and relay mechanism are used in this research.
2. PROPOSED SYSTEM
The main objective of this research is to design an automatic plant irrigation system to control
the amount of water using arduino uno R3 and soil moisture sensors and control of the system continuously
through the monitoring station and scheduling the irrigation system by selecting the type of plant from
botanical library that was proposed and contribute to reducing all costs (water, labor) and increase
the agricultural production. The majority of soil moisture sensors are used depending on the relationship
between soil moisture and the electrical potential difference. Table 1 illustrated the famous of moisture soil
sensor [16-18].
Table 1. Famous types of moisture soil sensors
Types Its items
1-Volumetric sensors 1-Refractometry (TDR) sensors,
2-Time Domain Transmissiometry (TDT) sensors,
3-Capacitance or Frequency Domain Refractometry (FDR) sensors
2-Tensiometers To measure the tension between soil particles and water molecules.
3-Solid soil moisture sensor 1-Gypsum blocks
2-Granular matrix sensors.
4-Single-Point Measurement 1-ECH2O EC-52- CS650
The proposed system is a sustainable solution to enhance the efficiency of using water in
agricultural fields according to the requirements of plants. This system works by using drip irrigation by
connecting the sensors of the irrigation system to arduino uno and can be monitoring the system's operation
through a computer, and the ability to choose the types of plants according to the program of the system,
depending to the soil’s need for moisture in the plant root area. The automatic irrigation system for farmers
allows to determining the necessary amounts of water in due course. The proposed system is distinguished
from other systems by automating the irrigation system by computer.
3. RESEARCH METHOD
As far as this proposed system concerned, the use of the automation irrigation sensor is a purpose of
improving water use efficiency, the irrigation sensors provide information to the control system on how much
water the cultivated land needs and the amount of water spent and the provide the system user with instant
reports about water pumps which are turn ON or OFF. The main used hardware components in this research
are: arduino uno R3, FC-28 soil hygrometer, water pumps, transistor 2n222, resistor (220 Ohm), connecting
wires, batteries (5 V), pipes and drip, network of valves water, and line drip tube.
3.1. Soil moisture sensor
Uses the moisture sensor in the soil is used by implanting two electrodes (cathode anode)
in the agricultural soil and after the water flows into the soil, these electrodes are affected electrically and
send signals representing the electric voltage difference to arduino device and then to the pc to close or open
the valves to ensure flow or close the water. Figure 1 shows the electrical circuit work. The soil moisture
sensor consists of three pins (VCC, GND, SIG), VCC is the regulated DC supply voltage, GND
is the ground, and the third (SIG) to send the signal to one of arduino's serial ports for reading soil moisture.

 ISSN: 2302-9285
Bulletin of Electr Eng & Inf, Vol. 9, No. 4, August 2020 : 2038 – 2044
2040
Figure 1. Soil moisture FC-28 soil hygrometer sensor
3.2. Circuit arduino and soil moisture sensor
Usually, water pumps need more electrical energy than the arduino board can provide, so pumps
must be connected to an external power source. To control the opening or closing of the pump circuit,
2n2222 transistor is used in this work as switch in arduino circuit, to open and close the pump circuit by
sending an electrical signal from one of its digital ports to transistor and the signal is either (5 V) or (0 V) to
turn the pump ON or OFF. Figure 2 illustrated the circuit of arduino uno R3 with the soil moisture sensor.
Figure 2. Circuit arduino and soil moisture sensor with water pump
3.3. Software design
The flowchart in Figure 3 shows the sequential steps for the system progress, from selecting the
plant types to determine the quantity of water needed for each type of plant and then operating humidity
sensors to determine whether the soil needs water and printing reports on the amount of water spent within 24
hours. Figure 3 shows the steps of how the system works.
3.4. Operating system process stages
Initially, when the program is started by PC, all soil moistures sensors remain in waiting state until
the plant type is chosen from the plant library then choosing the plant fields to be irrigated depending on
humidity sensors to turn ON water pump in the light of the quantity of moisture measured by the soil
moisture sensors as shown in the Figure 4.

2041
Figure 3. Flowchart of the system's work steps
(a) (b)
Figure 4. Main window of the proposed system, (a) Home, (b) Plant library

 ISSN: 2302-9285
2042
(c)
Figure 4. Main window of the proposed system, (c) Dashboard (Continue)
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A status report can be requested the situation of the quantity of water spent in each agriculture field
as reflected in Figure 5 this allows continuous monitoring of sensors humidity in the plant field and water
pumps which are working. Data can also be modified on the plant and new plant species are introduced.
There is a large plant database with the amount of water suitable for each plant type as illustrated in Figure 6.
An experiment was conducted on an agricultural field with an area of one thousand meters divided into four
areas, it is about 250 meters per one, and a set of humidity sensors were distributed evenly in the soil to turn
ON the irrigation drips systems, and the results were obtained as shown in the Figure 7.
Figure 5. Report for situation quantity of water spent in each field

2043
Figure 6. Edit plant library
Figure 7. Benefits of drip irrigation
5. CONCLUSION
The drip irrigation system is one of the systems in Internet of Things (IoT) that depend on sensors
and automatic control in system through a computer system that is connected to arduino uno R3.
The proposed system aims to know the level of moisture in the soil and then water the land with
the necessary water, depending on the type of plant and the amount of water allocated to it. This system
reduced reliance on the human factor and reduced energy costs, in addition to increasing yields of crops
and a decrease in the amount of wasted water. The system can be developed by adding other sensors such as
temperature and the air humidity and using a GPS to monitor the status and control of all devices remotely by mobile.
REFERENCES
[1] N. Agrawal and S. Singhal, "Smart drip irrigation system using raspberry pi and arduino," International Conference
on Computing, Communication & Automation, Noida, pp. 928-932, 2015.
[2] D. Bansal and S. Reddy, "WSN based closed loop automatic irrigation system," International Journal of
Engineering Science and Innovative Technology (IJESIT), vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 229-237, 2013.
[3] M. Roopaei, P. Rad and K. R. Choo, "Cloud of Things in Smart Agriculture: Intelligent Irrigation Monitoring by
Thermal Imaging," in IEEE Cloud Computing, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 10-15, Jan.-Feb. 2017.
[4] J. M. Waworundeng, N. C. Suseno, and R. R. Y. Manaha, "Automatic Watering System for Plants with IoT
Monitoring and Notification," CogITo Smart Journal, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 316-326, 2019.
[5] B. Will and I. Rolfes, "A miniaturized soil moisture sensor based on time domain transmissometry," 2014 IEEE
Sensors Applications Symposium (SAS), Queenstown, pp. 233-236, 2014.
[6] C. Yoon, M. Huh, S. Kang, J. Park and C. Lee, "Implement smart farm with IoT technology," 2018 20th
International Conference on Advanced Communication Technology (ICACT), pp. 749-752, 2018.
[7] H. Ben Ali, M. Hammami, A. Saidi, and R. Boukchina, "Assessment of a new approach for systematic subsurface
drip irrigation management," International Journal of Agronomy, 2017.

 ISSN: 2302-9285
2044
[8] S. Bhunia, I. Verma, M. Arif, R. Gochar, and N. Sharma, "Effect of crop geometry, drip irrigation and bio-regulator
on growth, yield and water use efficiency of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)," International Journal of Agricultural
Sciences, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 45-49, 2015.
[9] G. Bitella, R. Rossi, R. Bochicchio, M. Perniola, and M. Amato, "A novel low-cost open-hardware platform for
monitoring soil water content and multiple soil-air-vegetation parameters," Sensors, vol. 14, no. 10,
pp. 19639-19659, 2014.
[10] A. Bonfante, E. Monaco, P. Manna, R. De Mascellis, A. Basile, M. Buonanno, et al., "LCIS DSS-An irrigation
supporting system for water use efficiency improvement in precision agriculture: A maize case study," Agricultural
Systems, vol. 176, pp. 1-14, November 2019.
[11] O. A. Hammood, M. N. M. Kahar, W. A. Hammood, R. A. Hasan, M. A. Mohammed, A. A. Yoob, et al., "An
effective transmit packet coding with trust-based relay nodes in VANETs," Bulletin of Electrical Engineering and
Informatics, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 685-697, 2020.
[12] L. Colizzi, D. Caivano, C. Ardito, G. Desolda, A. Castrignanò, M. Matera, et al., "Chapter 1-Introduction to
agricultural IoT," in Agricultural Internet of Things and Decision Support for Precision Smart Farming, A.
Castrignanò, G. Buttafuoco, R. Khosla, A. M. Mouazen, D. Moshou, and O. Naud, Eds., ed: Academic Press, pp. 1-33, 2020.
[13] A. D’Ausilio, "Arduino: A low-cost multipurpose lab equipment," Behavior research methods, vol. 44, pp. 305-313, 2012.
[14] F. R. de Miranda, "A site-specific irrigation control system," in 2003 ASAE Annual Meeting, American Society of
Agricultural and Biological Engineers, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 2003.
[15] M. Dener, "WiSeN: A new sensor node for smart applications with wireless sensor networks," Computers &
Electrical Engineering, vol. 64, pp. 380-394, November 2017.
[16] A. Kumar and S. Magesh, "Automated Irrigation System Based on Soil Moisture Using Arduino," International
Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics, vol. 116, no. 21, pp. 319-323, 2017.
[17] M. Mahbub, "A smart farming concept based on smart embedded electronics, internet of things and wireless sensor
network," Internet of Things, vol. 9, March 2020.
[18] D. Novianto, I. Setiyowati, and E. Purnomo, "Design and calibration soil moisture sensor for rise seedling using
Arduino nano as a controller," in AIP Conference Proceedings, vol. 2097, no. 1, 2019.
[19] J. O. Payero, A. M. Nafchi, R. Davis, and A. Khalilian, "An Arduino-based wireless sensor network for soil
moisture monitoring using Decagon EC-5 sensors," Open Journal of Soil Science, vol. 7, no. 10, pp. 288-300, 2017.
[20] G. M. Spinelli, Z. L. Gottesman, and J. Deenik, "A low-cost Arduino-based datalogger with cellular modem and
FTP communication for irrigation water use monitoring to enable access to CropManage," HardwareX, vol. 6, 2019.
[21] N. Sudharshan, A. V. S. K. Karthik, J. S. S. Kiran, and S. Geetha, "Renewable Energy Based Smart Irrigation
System," Procedia Computer Science, vol. 165, pp. 615-623, 2019.
[22] M. S. Farooq, S. Riaz, A. Abid, K. Abid and M. A. Naeem, "A Survey on the Role of IoT in Agriculture for the
Implementation of Smart Farming," in IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 156237-156271, 2019.
[23] S. Ferdoush and X. Li, "Wireless Sensor Network System Design Using Raspberry Pi and Arduino for
Environmental Monitoring Applications," Procedia Computer Science, vol. 34, pp. 103-110, 2014.
[24] S. A. Hamoodi, A. N. Hamoodi, and G. M. Haydar, "Automated irrigation system based on soil moisture using
arduino board," Bulletin of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 870-876, 2020.
[25] S. Hussain, N. Schofield and A. W. Matin, "Design of a Web-Based Application for Wireless Sensor Networks,"
International Workshop on Database and Expert Systems Applications (DEXA'06), pp. 319-326, 2006.
[26] O. A. Hammood, N. Nizam, M. Nafaa, and W. A. Hammood, "RESP: Relay Suitability-based Routing Protocol for
Video Streaming in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks," International Journal of Computers, Communications &
Control, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 21-38, February 2019.
[27] M. A. Mohammed et al., "A Focal load balancer based algorithm for task assignment in cloud environment,"
International Conference on Electronics, Computers and Artificial Intelligence (ECAI), Iasi, Romania, pp. 1-4, 2018.
[28] Royida A. Ibrahem Alhayali, Munef Abdullah Ahmed, Yasmin Makki Mohialden, Ahmed H. Ali, "Efficient
method for breast cancer classification based on ensemble hoffeding tree and naïve Bayes," Indonesian Journal of
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 1074-1080, May 2020.
[29] M. A. Mohammed, I. A. Mohammed, R. A. Hasan, N. Ţăpuş, A. H. Ali, and O. A. Hammood, "Green Energy Sources:
Issues and Challenges," RoEduNet Conference: Networking in Education and Research (RoEduNet), pp. 1-8, 2019.
[30] M. A. Mohammed and N. ŢĂPUŞ, "A Novel Approach of Reducing Energy Consumption by Utilizing Enthalpy in
Mobile Cloud Computing," Studies in Informatics and Control, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 425-434, December 2017.
[31] N. Q. Mohammed, M. S. Ahmed, M. A. Mohammed, O. A. Hammood, H. A. N. Alshara and A. A. Kamil,
"Comparative Analysis between Solar and Wind Turbine Energy Sources in IoT Based on Economical and
Efficiency Considerations," International Conference on Control Systems and Computer Science, Romania, 2019.
[32] Z. H. Salih, G. T. Hasan, M. A. Mohammed, M. A. S. Klib, A. H. Ali and R. A. Ibrahim, "Study the Effect of
Integrating the Solar Energy Source on Stability of Electrical Distribution System," 2019 22nd International
Conference on Control Systems and Computer Science (CSCS), Bucharest, Romania, pp. 443-447, 2019.
[33] S. Pawar, P. Rajput, and A. Shaikh, "Smart irrigation system using IOT and raspberry pi," International Research
Journal of Engineering and Technology, vol. 5, no. 8, pp. 1163-1166, 2018.
[34] G. Parameswaran and K. Sivaprasath, "Arduino based smart drip irrigation system using Internet of Things," Int. J.
Eng. Sci, vol. 6, no. 5, pp. 5518-5521, 2016.
[35] P. Naik, A. Kumbi, C. N. Vishwanath Hiregoudar, S. B. Pavitra HK, and P. K. Sushmita JH, "Arduino Based
Automatic Irrigation System Using IoT," International Journal of Scientific Research in Computer Science,
Engineering and Information Technology, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 1-5, 2017.

Technique smart control soil moisture system to watering plant based on IoT with arduino uno

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Similar to Technique smart control soil moisture system to watering plant based on IoT with arduino uno (20)

More from journalBEEI (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Technique smart control soil moisture system to watering plant based on IoT with arduino uno