This paper proposes an automated irrigation using Arduino microcontroller system which is cost effective and can be used in a farm or in an average home garden. The proposed system is developed to be automatically watering the plants when the soil moisture sensor detected water insufficiency in the soil by using the Arduino as the center core. The automated irrigation system is a fully functional prototype which consists of a soil moisture sensor; an LCD display to show the moisture percentage and pump status; a relay module which is used to control the on and off switch of the water pump; and a water pump. When the soil moisture sensor senses the dry soil, it will show the moisture percentage on the LCD display, and the relay module will switch on the water pump automatically to start the watering process or vice versa. Hardware testing is conducted to ensure the proposed system is fully functional. Keywords—microcontroller; sensor; automated irrigation system I. INTRODUCTION Fresh water is needed for crop and energy production, industrial fabrication as well as human and ecosystem. According to AQUASTAT database, in the year 2010, 69% of the total extracted freshwater is used by the agriculture sector, whereas 19% is used by industrial sector and the rest in used by domestic segment [1]. Therefore, water can be considered as a critical need in the agriculture sector for future global food security [2], [3]. However, continuous increase in demand for water by domestic and industrial sectors and greater concerns for environmental quality have created a challenge to every country to reduce the farm water consumption while sustaining the fresh food requirement [4]. Consequently, there is an urgent need to create strategies based on science and technology for the sustainable use of water. Industrialist and researchers are working to build efficient and economic automatic systems to control water usage in order to reduce much of the wastage. Irrigation is an artificial application of watering the land for agricultural production. The requirement of water for soil depends on soil properties such as soil moisture and soil temperature. Effective irrigation can influence the entire growth process and automation in irrigation system using modern technology can be used to provide better irrigation management. In general, most of the irrigation systems are manually operated [5]. These traditional techniques can be replaced with automated techniques of irrigation to use water efficiently and effectively [6]. Conventionally, farmers must be present in their fields to do irrigation process. Nevertheless, nowadays farmers need to manage their agricultural activity along with other occupations. A sensor based automated irrigation system provides a promising solution to farmers where the presence of a farmer in the farm is not compulsory anymore during the process of irrigation. Article history: Manuscript received 12 March 2019; received in revised form 06 April

1. CONFIGURING TIMERS FOR AUTOMATIC
SWITCHING
“ON AND OFF” OF IRRIGATION SYSTEMS
- ICT FOR AGRICULTURE ENGINEERS

2. PRESENTED BY
Mr.S.Arul B.E(Agri).,M.Tech(AT)
MRT22PGMAT001
Department of Agriculture Technology
Shobhit Institute of Engineering and Technology
Merut,UP.

3. INTRODUCTION
o This paper proposes an automated irrigation using Arduino microcontroller system which is
cost effective and can be used in a farm or in an average home garden.
o The proposed system is developed to be automatically watering the plants when the soil
moisture sensor detected water insufficiency in the soil by using the Arduino as the center
core.
o The automated irrigation system is a fully functional prototype which consists of a soil
moisture sensor; an LCD display to show the moisture percentage and pump status; a relay
module which is used to control the on and off switch of the water pump; and a water pump.
o When the soil moisture sensor senses the dry soil, it will show the moisture percentage on the
LCD display, and the relay module will switch on the water pump automatically to start the
watering process or vice versa.
o Hardware testing is conducted to ensure the proposed system is fully functional.

4. COMPONENTS NEEDED

5. 1.Arduino UNO development board
2. Motor (or) LED
3. USB cable
4. Breadboard
5. Connecting wires

6. ARDUINO UNO DEVELOPMENT BOARD
The Arduino UNO is the best board
to get started with electronics and
coding. If this is your first experience
tinkering with the platform, the UNO
is the most robust board you can start
playing with. The UNO is the most
used and documented board of the
whole Arduino family.

7. LED
LEDs are small, powerful lights that
are used in many different
applications. To start, we will work
on blinking an LED, the Hello World
of microcontrollers. It is as simple as
turning a light on and off.
Establishing this important baseline
will give you a solid foundation as
we work towards experiments that
are more complex.

8. USB CABLE
Use it to connect Arduino Uno,
Arduino Mega 2560, Arduino 101 or
any board with the USB female A
port of your computer.
Cable length is approximately
100cm. Cable color and shape may
vary slightly from image as our stock
rotates. If you want to have a closer
look to USB cables and standers
check the USB cable pinouts
referral page on pinouts.ru
USB cable type A/B Standard USB
2.0 cable.

9. BREADBOARD
Breadboards are one of the most
fundamental pieces when learning
how to build circuits. In this tutorial,
you will learn a little bit about what
breadboards are, why they are called
breadboards, and how to use one.
Once you are done you should have a
basic understanding of how
breadboards work and be able to
build a basic circuit on a breadboard.

10. CONNECTING WIRES
Connecting wires are used for
making connections between
items on your breadboard and
your Arduino’s header pins. Use
them to wire up all your circuits.

11. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS OF
ARDUINO UNO

12. MICROCONTROLLER - ATMEGA328
OPERATING VOLTAGE - 5V
SUPPLY VOLTAGE (RECOMMENDED) - 7-12V
MAXIMUM SUPPLY VOLTAGE (NOT RECOMMENDED) - 20V
DIGITAL I/O PINS - 14(OF WHICH 6 PROVIDE PWM O/P)
ANALOG INPUT PINS - 6

13. DC CURRENT PER I/O PIN - 40 MA
DC CURRENT FOR 3.3V PIN - 50 MA
FLASH MEMORY - 32 KB (ATMEGA328) OF WHICH 0.5KB USED BY
BOOTLOADER
SRAM - 2 KB (ATMEGA328)
EEPROM - 1 KB (ATMEGA328)
CLOCK SPEED - 16 MHZ

14. PROGRAMMING
void setup() {
// put your setup code here, to run once:
pinMode(7,OUTPUT);
pinMode(10,OUTPUT);
pinMode(12,OUTPUT);
}
void loop() {
// put your main code here, to run repeatedly:
digitalWrite(7,HIGH);
delay(1000);
digitalWrite(7,LOW);
digitalWrite(10,HIGH);
delay(1000);
digitalWrite(10,LOW);
digitalWrite(12,HIGH);
delay(1000);
digitalWrite(12,LOW);
}

15. PROCEDURE
1.Arduino development board is connected to PC through USB cable
2. Open “Arduino” icon from the computer desktop
3. Select tools menu→ choose Arduino board type
4. Select tools menu→ choose Arduino board COM port
5. Select file menu→ choose new and type program
6. Click Verify icon→ once compilation done to upload the program to
Arduino controller by clicking Upload icon
7. The circuit connections were given as shown in connection diagram.
8. When the given the LEDs are glows one by one sequentially.

16. CONNECTION DIAGRAM

17. MODEL GRAPH

18. TUTTORIAL VIDEO

20. CONCLUSION
The main purpose of this paper is to propose an automated irrigation system
that water the plant without any human control. The implemented automated
irrigation system is found to be feasible and cost effective after optimizing
the water resources for the agricultural production. Besides the automated
irrigation system, the proposed system also provides the monitoring function
where users are able to check the soil moisture based on the reading displayed
on the LCD. The proposed system has been designed and tested to function
automatically. For future works, the automated irrigation system can be
configured to measure the moisture level (water content) according to the
moisture requirement of the different plants.