CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.

1 Introduction
Water is a basic component of all known life on earth. Water can both sustain life in correct quantities and threaten life when it is not available. Water as a result is a very precious natural resource that must not be wasted. For crop irrigation, optimal water efficiency means minimizing losses due to evaporation, runoff or subsurface drainage while maximizing production. Soil moisture sensors can be used to determine how much water contents are available in soil and how much water is needed to satisfy plant requirements. This project is proposed to save the water and energy. In this project we are trying to optimize the use of water for irrigation using microcontroller and various sensors. For measuring physical parameters values such as temperature and soil moisture contents, various sensors are used and the outputs of these sensors are converted to control the parameters. The control circuit is designed using micro-controller. The outputs of these sensors are fed to micro-controller. The microcontroller outputs are also used to driver a relay independently. This relay energizes and de-energizes automatically according to the real time value of the moisture contents in soil and temperature.

1.2

Need of Investigation
Conservation of water in the agricultural sector is essential since water is necessary for the growth of plants and

crops. . If too much water is applied the problems arise consisting of runoff, erosion, waste of water and deceased plant life. If too little water is applied different problems arise such as turf burnout. The key in irrigation is striking to correct

balance for optimal plant life with optimal use of water. A depleting water table and a rise in salinity due to overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has made matters serious. Flood irrigation, the oldest and most common type, is often very uneven in distribution, as parts of a field may receive excess water in order to deliver sufficient quantities to other parts. Overhead irrigation, using center-pivot or lateral-moving sprinklers, has the potential for a much more equal and controlled distribution pattern. Drip irrigation is the most expensive and least-used type, but offers the ability to deliver water to plant roots with minimal losses. However, drip irrigation is increasingly affordable, especially for the home gardener and in light of rising water rates. There are also cheap effective methods similar to drip irrigation such as the use of soaking hoses that can even be submerged in the growing medium to eliminate evaporation. As changing irrigation systems can be a costly undertaking, conservation efforts often concentrate on maximizing the efficiency of the existing system. This may include chiseling compacted soils, creating furrow dikes to prevent runoff, and using soil moisture and temperature sensors to optimize irrigation schedules. Usually large gains in efficiency are possible through measurement and more effective management of the existing irrigation system.

1.3

Theme
An irrigation controller is a device to operate automatic irrigation systems such as lawn sprinklers and drip

irrigation systems. Most controllers have a means of setting the frequency of irrigation, the start time, and the duration of watering. Some controllers have additional features such as multiple programs to allow different watering frequencies for different types of plants, rain delay settings, input terminals for sensors such as rain and freeze sensors, soil moisture sensors, remote operation, etc. Soil moisture sensor is a sensor connected to an irrigation system controller that measure soil moisture content in the active root zone. When connected to conventional system irrigation time clocks, soil moisture sensors can override scheduled watering events by interrupting the irrigation controller circuit when adequate moisture is

detected in the soil. The sensors have user-adjustable moisture content set-points that allow unique watering regimes based on plant species, soil type, and/or seasonal rainfall. From the sensors output voltage, the console calculates and displays solar irradiance. The sensors integrate sensor elements plus signal processing on a tiny foot print and provide a fully calibrated digital output. A unique capacitive sensor element is used for measuring relative humidity while temperature is measured by a temperature sensing device.
1.4

Objective
The main objective of our work is to design an automated agricultural system which is purely sensor based and

economical as well as durable and with the best success rate which can manage everything without the human interference. In this project our aim is to explain how to overcome the effect caused by the disadvantages in the normal irrigation schemes without any human observation. It also explains the effective working of sensors which help the project to become automated to yield more useful results in agricultural irrigation.

1.5

Organization of the project

agricultural irrigation. The report starts off with introduction in first chapter with the Basic Block Diagram of the system and its description. The blocks shown are much generalized, and can represent a general microcontroller application block. Chapter is discussed as an introduction of the project.

Chapter two gives the history behind the evolution of this intelligent technique used ON/OFF of a water pump motor. So a detailed literature survey is given which describes the various conditions and how water the electricity can be saved with the help of this circuit. Then the details of every block and complete working of project is discussed and explained in the chapter three of working and hardware description. In this chapter we have included the circuit diagrams and features of the different component like soil moisture sensor, LM-35, microcontroller ATmega-16, etc which we are using. For more details, the datasheets are attached in the appendix. The next part of same chapter three explains the software part of the project. This mainly deals with the calculations and interfacing of different chips with the controller. Their description and the flowcharts are drawn in here. The embedded C language code for the same is included in this chapter. Chapter four gives the testing and experimental results of the system. Also the experimental results of various already tested and implemented systems are discussed so that it gives the perfect direction to develop an intelligent water saving system. And the last chapter of conclusion shows what we are looking in future regarding the topic and thus gives an idea how the application of Intelligent Energy Saving circuit can change a number of things and how it brings saving of electricity which is the need of time in the whole world. So lets see what is inside the project.