ISSN (Online) 2394-2320

International Journal of Engineering Research in Computer Science and Engineering

(IJERCSE)
Vol 10, Issue 7, July 2023

Smart Irrigation System using Soil Moisture Sensor

[1]
Jyothi A P, [2] Kshamaa S, [3] Vaishnavi B, [4] Sanjay JR, [5] Vineet Kushalappa K
[1]
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science Engineering (CSE), Faculty of Engineering & Technology, Ramaiah
University of Applied Sciences, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
[2] [3] [4] [5]
Department of Computer Science Engineering (CSE), Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences,
Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Corresponding Author Email: [1] jyothiarcotprashant@gmail.com, [2] kshamaa.s2001@gmail.com,
[3]
vaishnavisk2823@gmail.com, [4] sanjayjr2001@gmail.com, [5] vineetkushalappa@gmail.com

Abstract— IoT is an emerging technology with tremendous applications in fields such as: healthcare, automotive, and agriculture.
Countries are attempting to improve the sustainability of agriculture by combining various technologies. Improving irrigation systems is
critical for reducing water waste and contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. In this application, sensor
technology is used to create a smart IoT irrigation system that can be used in agriculture.

Keywords— IoT, Smart irrigation, Moisture sensor, Temperature sensor, Relay system, Agriculture support, Wireless technology.

problem in agriculture [2]. Water waste occurs when excess

I. INTRODUCTION water is supplied to fields that do not require it. There are
Farming is a major occupation. Farmers make use of larger numerous techniques for reducing or controlling water waste
land portions to perform farming activities. This leads to in agriculture. Because of major climatic changes and a lack
difficulty when trying to reach every corner of the land and when it comes to precision in agriculture, the agricultural
keep track of the resource availability. The reduced yield has reduced as population has increased. The major
availability of clean water resources is a driving factor for sources of irrigation are through canal systems. In canal
their optimal utilization solution. IoT, based application systems fields are pumped with water at regular intervals
makes use of sensors for data acquisition and processing and with no prior idea about the field's current water level. The
is reducing the distance between the virtual and the physical crops are negatively impacted from this form of irrigation.
worlds. An irrigation system that is smart and based on IoT The crop health and returns are reduced because some of the
can help in achieving the optimized usage of water resources crops are extremely sensitized to the water content in the soil.
for a precision farming landscape. [1] [20][6].
The goal of this system is to carefully preserve water Moisture also regulates the soil fertility and aids in the
resources, manage the entire system through manual and survival of all plants. Moisture in the soil is the amount of
automatic means, and detect soil moisture levels. water present. The growth of crops depends on the amount of
The primary goal of this system is to provide irrigation to water in the soil. The crop's root respiration will be impacted
different areas of farming land based on environmental if the soil moisture content is noticeably high. In contrast,
conditions such as humidity, soil moisture content and when moisture levels are exceptionally low, nutrients and
temperature. [15, 16] fertilizers that escape into the water can cause groundwater
Intelligent irrigation systems are based on dynamically pollution, which will limit how well the crop can absorb the
predicting the soil moisture pattern and information fertilizers and increase soil salinization. [10][20].
regarding precipitation of the field for the coming days. In India, farmers utilize large portions of land for farming.
These are required for the optimal usage and effectively It is a hard task to find and reach each and every corner of
utilizing fresh water for the purpose of agriculture.[2] such massive lands. At times there can arise the problem of
uneven distribution of water. This would lead to bad quality
II. LITERATURE REVIEW of crops which leads to monetary loss. The solution to such
issues is to make use of smart irrigation systems using the
Agriculture accounts for 60% to 70% of the Indian
latest IoT technology. [6][10].
subcontinent's economy. Traditional agricultural practises
must be modernised in order to increase productivity. Ground
III. OVERVIEW OF THE SYSTEM
water levels are rapidly depleting as a result of unplanned
use, a lack of rain, and a scarcity of land water [1]. A. Research conceptual idea.
Water scarcity is a major issue in this day and age. Water is [4] The idea behind a smart irrigation system is to measure
an essential component in all fields. Agriculture is one of the vital soil factors like moisture content, temperature and
industries that requires a lot of water. Water waste is a major humidity and use these values to irrigate the farming land.

8
 ISSN (Online) 2394-2320
International Journal of Engineering Research in Computer Science and Engineering
(IJERCSE)
Vol 10, Issue 7, July 2023

Different crops have different requirements when it comes to

growing conditions. Some crops thrive only when irrigation
is performed at regular intervals while some others do not
need regular irrigation. These growing conditions are hard to
map out and meet in real time. Hence, an effective approach
is required to reduce the manual labour load and migrate the
managing of requirements aspect of crop growth to smart
systems.
[8] This system aims to achieve the goal of smart Figure 1: NodeMCU ESP8266
irrigation. A soil moisture sensor is utilized to collect data on
the moisture content of the soil. A DHT11 sensor is utilized  Soil moisture sensor:
to obtain information of the humidity and temperature  Employed to detect the quantity of water in the soil.
conditions of the soil. This information is collected and  The moisture level is calculated based on the volumetric
stored on cloud. Processing of this information is done content of water within the soil. Both digital and analog
through cloud too. Based on the readings and conditions outputs are a part of this module.
control actions are performed. If the soil moisture reading  The module also has a potentiometer to adjust the
and temperature and humidity readings drop below a certain threshold level.
benchmark and the water motor is off, the motor is turned on
using a relay module to irrigate the soil. If the soil moisture
reading and temperature and humidity readings rise beyond a
certain limit and the water motor is on, the motor is turned off
using a relay module to stop the process of soil irrigation.
Over a period of time the data on moisture content,
temperature and humidity can be collected and analysed to
understand the moisture requirements for a particular type of
crop. This information helps in providing an optimal growing
environment for the crops.
B. Steps or process followed. Figure 2: Soil Moisture Sensor
Fig. 1. Data acquisition: The sensors employed collect the  DHT11 Sensor:
data from the environment.
 DHT11 is a simple and inexpensive sensor that measures
Fig. 2. Data processing: Data collected from the sensor is
the humidity and the digital temperature.
processed to check for the soil reducing beyond a
 Employs a capacitive humidity sensor and a thermistor to
particular benchmark value.
measure the surrounding air and delivers a digital signal
Fig. 3. Data analysis: Data is analyzed through the cloud.
on the data pin.
Fig. 4. Wireless communication: Wireless communication is
 The operation is simple, but the collection of data requires
utilized to send the analyzed data from the sensors to
proper timing.
perform a particular control action.
 Disadvantage: New data can only be accumulated for 1
Fig. 5. Irrigation control: Based on the communication,
time every 2 seconds. [13]
control action is employed. [7][11]
C. Components required.
 NodeMCU ESP8266:
 Integrated circuit unit.
 ESP8266 is a system on a chip that is of low-cost.
 The ESP8266 consists of all necessary computer
components like CPU, RAM, operating systems, wireless
networks and SDK. Figure 3: DHT11 sensor
 Allows transfer of data by utilizing Wi-Fi protocol.  Relay Module:
 Electrical power switch.
 Operated by using an electromagnet.
 Used to open or close an electric circuit.
 In this system the relay is used to turn the motor on or off
based on the control conditions.

9
 ISSN (Online) 2394-2320
International Journal of Engineering Research in Computer Science and Engineering
(IJERCSE)
Vol 10, Issue 7, July 2023

 ThingSpeak:
 Analytics platform.
 Open-sourced.
 Used to visualize and analyse data.

Figure 4: Relay module

 Water Pump:
 Submersible 5V water pump.
 Uses DC power supply.
 In this system used to irrigate the soil. Figure 8: Cloud platform

IV. WORKFLOW
A. Workflow breakdown.
The workflow of the system is as follows:
 The soil moisture sensor is placed within the soil and the
moisture level of the soil is measured. Soil moisture
sensor gives an analog output.
 The DHT11 sensor is employed to measure temperature
and humidity values of the environment that the
plant/crops are placed in.
 Humidity as well as temperature plays a vital role in plant
Figure 5: Water pump growth.
 Connecting wires:  The data from these sensors are collected and the
microcontroller – NodeMCU ESP8266 is used to send
 Male to Male wires.
this data to cloud.
 Female to Female wires.
 Male to Female wires.  ThingSpeak is the analytics platform used. The data from
the sensors are sent to cloud for analysis purposes. Graphs
are generated in real time for the sensor data.
 If the soil moisture drops below 55% the motor is turned
on using the relay and thus, irrigate the soil. If this soil
moisture content is greater than 56% and the motor is on,
the motor is turned off using relay module. This is the
control action performed.

Figure 6: Water pump

 Breadboard:
 Used to build circuits.
 Used to connect the various components in the circuit.

Figure 7: Breadboard Figure 9: Workflow diagram

10
 ISSN (Online) 2394-2320
International Journal of Engineering Research in Computer Science and Engineering
(IJERCSE)
Vol 10, Issue 7, July 2023

Figure 11: Circuit diagram

Figure 12: Circuit connections

Figure 10: Flowchart

B. Circuit breakdown.
The circuit for the given system is built using a
breadboard. The connections can be seen as follows:
 The NodeMCU ESP8266 board is connected to the
DHT11 sensor, the moisture sensor and the relay module.
 The relay module is further connected to the water pump.
Power supply to the water pump is given directly through
the AC supply in buildings by using a 5V adapter.
 The NodeMCU’s ground pin is linked to the negative of
the breadboard. The VCC pin of the NodeMCU is
Figure 13: Circuit connections
connected to the positive of the breadboard.
 The DHT11 sensor is connected to the D3 pin of the C. Result breakdown.
NodeMCU board. Outcomes of the above application are as follows:
 The soil moisture sensor is connected to the A0 pin of the  The NodeMCU ESP8266 collects the analog input from
NodeMCU board. the soil moisture sensor. This analog value is then
 The relay module’s IN is connected to the D4 pin of the converted into percentage. The percentage value of
NodeMCU board. The VCC of relay module is connected moisture content is uploaded onto ThingSpeak [cloud] in
to the 3V3 pin on the NodeMCU board and the ground of real time.
the relay module is connected to the ground of the  The NodeMCU ESP8266 also collects data on
NodeMCU board. temperature and humidity from the DHT11 sensor. This

11
 ISSN (Online) 2394-2320
International Journal of Engineering Research in Computer Science and Engineering
(IJERCSE)
Vol 10, Issue 7, July 2023

information is also uploaded onto ThingSpeak in real

time.
 Graphs are generated for the data on ThingSpeak. These
graphs can be used for analysis.
 The soil moisture percentage is used to control the motor.
If the soil moisture percentage is less than 55% and the
relay module status is set to LOW then the relay module
status is changed to HIGH. This leads to the motor being
turned on and water is pumped into the soil. If the soil
moisture percentage is greater than 56% and the module
is set to HIGH then it is changed to LOW and the motor Figure 18: Humidity graph
turns off. If the relay module is already set in LOW then it
remains in the same state. This is the control action
performed.

Figure 19: Moisture content graph

Figure 15: Motor turned on to irrigate the soil

Figure 20: Temperature graph

D. Benefits of Application.
[7][6] Some of the benefits of implementing a smart
irrigation system can be listed as follows:
 Better crop management: The crops can be monitored and
managed in a better manner using this system.
Figure 16: Connection established, values measured  Optimum growth rate of crops: The crops obtain the
required amount of moisture and hence have a better
growth rate.
 Monitor the product conditions in real time: The
conditions in which the crops are growing are regularly
monitored using the sensors.
 Prediction and making informed decisions: Based on the
growth rate and information obtained from the sensors
analytics can be run to automate the sprinkler system
based on crop requirements.
 Reduce overall water consumption: Water is not wasted
and is used in a sensible and optimised manner.
Figure 17: Connection established and values being  Prevent diseases: The crops are not subjected to
measured in real time waterlogging or water deficit conditions. This prevents

12
 ISSN (Online) 2394-2320
International Journal of Engineering Research in Computer Science and Engineering
(IJERCSE)
Vol 10, Issue 7, July 2023

the crops from getting infected with some diseases. companies with an opportunity to identify ways to improve
 Preserve the soil structure and nutrients: Since each crop their IoT and WSN technologies. [7]
gets the proper amount of water required for optimal Higher attention has to be provided to management and
growth the soil structure and nutrients in the soil are safety concerns when introducing intelligent irrigation
effectively preserved. systems. A strong communication infrastructure is absolutely
 Cleaner and efficient processes: The process of smart necessary for the nodes to perform the required tasks.
irrigation is a clean and effective way to handle irrigation Various sensors are typically used to connect systems, and
for crops. maintaining communication between points is critical. Better
 Reduce resources: The overall consumption of resources communication and fewer mistakes and difficulties yield
can be effectively reduced by using smart irrigation better results. [7]
techniques.
REFERENCES
V. FUTURE RESEARCH [1] A.V. Bosisio and M. P. Cadeddu, Rain detection from ground-
[10] The future prospects of this application include: based radiometric measurements: Validation against rain
sensor observations, in 2015 IEEEInternational Geo-science
 The moisture sensors can be installed at regular intervals
and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), July 2015, pp.
in farming lands so that data about the moisture content 23232326.
can be collected for analysis simultaneously. [2] G. M. Salim, H. Ismail, N. Debnath, and A. Nadya, Optimal
 Water pumps having varying degrees of output pressure light power consumption using LDR sensor, in 2015 IEEE
can be installed in fields. By using this and the readings of International Symposium on Robotics and Intelligent Sensors
moisture percentage the amount of water required by the (IRIS), Oct 2015, pp. 144148.
crops can be determined and accordingly provided. [3] Peng S Q, Zhong Y H, Cui Y, Yang C R. Technical manual
of farmland soil moisture monitoring. Beijing: China
 By making use of the data collected over a stretch of time
Agricultural Science and Technology Press, 2008; 159p
for moisture, humidity and temperature artificial
[4] Soil biochemistry. In: Encyclopedia of Chinese Agriculture,
intelligence algorithms can be built to identify the water Soil Volume, Chinese Agricultural Encyclopedia Compiling
requirements of various types of crops over different Committee, Beijing: Agricultural Press, 1996; pp.362–364.
periods of time. [5] Shamshiri R R, Weltzien C. Development and field
 Machine learning models can be implemented to evaluation of a multichannel LoRa sensor for IoT monitoring
optimise, analyse and predefine the amount of water in berry orchards. In: Meyer-Aurich A. et al.
required by crops over their growth cycle. Informations-und Kommunikationstechnologien in kritischen
Zeiten. Lecture Notes in Informatics (LNI). Gesellschaft für
 The entire process of irrigation can be automated. This
Informatik, Bonn, 2021; pp.289–294.
would reduce the amount of manual labour required in the [6] Jyothi, A.P. and Usha, S., 2020. Interstellar‐based topology
process of irrigation. control scheme for optimal clustering performance in WSN.
International Journal of Communication Systems, 33(8),
VI. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS p.e4350.
[9][8] Water management is very important in countries [7] Obaideen, K., Yousef, B.A., AlMallahi, M.N., Tan, Y.C.,
Mahmoud, M., Jaber, H. and Ramadan, M., 2022. An
with limited water resources. Agriculture uses a lot of water,
overview of smart irrigation systems using IoT. Energy
so this industry will also be affected. With growing concerns
Nexus, p.100124.
about global warming, we can develop a water management [8] Bhanu, K.N., Mahadevaswamy, H.S. and Jasmine, H.J., 2020,
strategy to ensure that we have enough water for both food July. Iot based smart system for enhanced irrigation in
production and consumption. Result, water conservation agriculture. In 2020 International Conference on Electronics
research for irrigation has become more popular with time. and Sustainable Communication Systems (ICESC) (pp.
Implementing IoT-based smart farming systems will 760-765). IEEE.
improve crop quality and reduce the need for human labour in [9] García, L., Parra, L., Jimenez, J.M., Lloret, J. and Lorenz, P.,
the agricultural process. As agriculture is a key resource for 2020. IoT-based smart irrigation systems: An overview on the
recent trends on sensors and IoT systems for irrigation in
obtaining food resources, process optimization and
precision agriculture. Sensors, 20(4), p.1042.
improvement are required. Also, intelligent irrigation
[10] Jyothi, A.P. and Sakthivel, U., 2017, February. CFCLP-a
technology saves water effectively; ensuring plants are no novel Clustering Framework based on Combinatorial
longer exposed to waterlogging and lack of water. One of the approach and Linear Programming in Wireless Sensor
proposals involves extensive research and development to Network. In 2017 2nd International Conference on
find out the existing drawbacks in processes and methods and Computing and Communications Technologies (ICCCT) (pp.
propose better approaches to obtain better results. The 49-54). IEEE.
benefits of R&D are significant and enable companies to [11] Shekhar, Y., Dagur, E., Mishra, S. and Sankaranarayanan, S.,
ensure long-term effectiveness. Therefore, it can provide 2017. Intelligent IoT based automated irrigation system.
International Journal of Applied Engineering Research,

13
 ISSN (Online) 2394-2320
International Journal of Engineering Research in Computer Science and Engineering
(IJERCSE)
Vol 10, Issue 7, July 2023
12(18), pp.7306-7320.
[12] “NodeMCU ESP8266 Specifications, Overview and Setting
Up.” LEDs, Arduino, IoT and Electronics,
https://www.make-it.ca/nodemcu-details-specifications/.
Accessed 12 November 2022.
[13] “DHT11 basic temperature-humidity sensor + extras : ID 386 :
$5.00.” Adafruit Industries, https://www.adafruit.com/
product/386. Accessed 12 November 2022.
[14] Ndunagu, J.N., Ukhurebor, K.E., Akaaza, M. and Onyancha,
R.B., 2022. Development of a Wireless Sensor Network and
IoT-based Smart Irrigation System. Applied and
Environmental Soil Science, 2022.
[15] Kwok, J. and Sun, Y., 2018, January. A smart IoT-based
irrigation system with automated plant recognition using deep
learning. In Proceedings of the 10th international conference
on computer modeling and simulation (pp. 87-91).
[16] Vij, A., Vijendra, S., Jain, A., Bajaj, S., Bassi, A. and Sharma,
A., 2020. IoT and machine learning approaches for
automation of farm irrigation system. Procedia Computer
Science, 167, pp.1250-1257.
[17] Keswani, B., Mohapatra, A.G., Mohanty, A., Khanna, A.,
Rodrigues, J.J., Gupta, D. and De Albuquerque, V.H.C., 2019.
Adapting weather conditions based IoT enabled smart
irrigation technique in precision agriculture mechanisms.
Neural Computing and Applications, 31(1), pp.277-292.
[18] Gupta, B.B. and Quamara, M., 2020. An overview of Internet
of Things (IoT): Architectural aspects, challenges, and
protocols. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and
Experience, 32(21), p.e4946.
[19] Chiang, M. and Zhang, T., 2016. Fog and IoT: An overview of
research opportunities. IEEE Internet of things journal, 3(6),
pp.854-864.
[20] Jyothi, A.P. and Usha, S., 2019. MSoC: Multi-scale optimized
clustering for energy preservation in wireless sensor network.
Wireless Personal Communications, 105(4), pp.1309-1328.
[21] Su S L, Singh D N, Baghini M S. A critical review of soil
moisture measurement. Measurement, 2014; 54: 92-105.
[22] International journal of Agricultural and biological
engineering.

14