Precision Agriculture Revolution: A Low-cost Smart Irrigation System Empowered by IoT for Small-scale Farmers

Authors

  • Ushaa Eswaran Principal and Professor, Department of ECE, Indira Institute of Technology and Sciences, Markapur, Andhra Pradesh, India
  • Vivek Eswaran Senior Software Engineer, Tech Lead at Medallia, Austin, Texas, United States
  • Keerthna Murali Site Reliability Engineer II (SRE) Dell EMC | CKAD | AWS CSAA, Austin, Texas, United States
  • Vishal Eswaran Senior Data Engineer at CVS Health Centre, Dallas, Texas, United States

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37591/joma.v10i3.7744

Keywords:

Precision agriculture, Smart irrigation, Internet of Things (IoT), Automation technologies, Sustainable agriculture, Small-scale farming, Sensor networks, Water resource optimization, Crop yield improvement, Cloud connectivity

Abstract

Precision agriculture powered by Internet of Things (IoT) is transforming traditional farming practices for improved crop yield and sustainability. This paper presents the architecture, implementation and testing of a low-cost smart irrigation system aimed at optimal utilization of water resources for small-scale farmers. The automated system monitors a suite of sensors that provide field data such as soil moisture, temperature, humidity. An intelligent controller processes this information to operate water pumps and valves for need-based irrigation. Real-time data is uploaded to the cloud and accessed through mobile interfaces. The major hardware components constituting the system include sensors, microcontroller, WiFi/GSM modules, pumps and valves. Software functions encompass sensor interfacing, data acquisition, actuator control and cloud connectivity. Key results demonstrate accurate sensor measurements, appropriately triggered irrigation cycles upon crossing moisture thresholds and remote monitoring of field statistics. Large-scale replication can enable precise irrigation to conserve water, improve productivity and assist farmers through informed decision making. With increasing strain on groundwater levels and fresh water resources, such IoT solutions hold the promise for revolutionizing agriculture sector.

References

Food and Agriculture Organization. (2022). Coping with water scarcity in agriculture: a global framework for action.

Liaghat, S., & Balasundram, S. K. (2010). A review: the role of remote sensing in precision agriculture. American Journal of Agricultural and Biological Sciences, 5(1), 50–55.

Lioutas, E. D., Charatsari, C., Laftsidis, P., & De, A. (2019). Internet of Things and big data technologies to support precision agriculture. MDPI AG.

Qin, Z., Myers, R., Wang, L., & Mortimer, C. (2020). Data flow and artificial intelligence for precision agriculture in rural area. IEEE Access, 8, 159296–159308.

Vuran, M. C., Salam, A., Wong, R., & Irmak, S. (2018). Internet of underground things in precision agriculture: Architecture and technology aspects. Ad Hoc Networks, 81, 160–173.

Nagarajan, S., Karthikeyan, L., & Kuperan, K. (2018). Technological interventions in drip irrigation for water and fertilizer use efficiency. Agricultural Research, 7(4), 459–470.

Popovic, T., Kraslawski, A., Nadporojskai, M., & Barbosa-Póvoa, A. (2018). Quantitative indicators for social sustainability assessment of the use phase of production systems: The case of farming machinery fleets. Journal of Cleaner Production, 180, 791–803.

Hargreaves, G. H., & Merkley, G. P. (Eds.). (1998). Irrigation fundamentals: An applied technology text. Water Resources Publication.

Bakhshianlou, D., Sharma, S. K., Allan, A., & Saxena, N. (2021). Applications of Machine Learning in Smart Irrigation for Precision Agriculture: A Comprehensive Review. Agriculture, 11(1), 48.

Vaz, C., Jones, S., Meding, M., & Tuller, M. (2013). Evaluation of standard calibration functions for eight electromagnetic soil moisture sensors. Vadose Zone Journal, 12(2).

Downloads

Published

2024-03-26

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 3 (2023)

Section

Articles

License

Declaration and Copyright Transfer Form

(to be completed by authors)

I/ We, the undersigned author(s) of the submitted manuscript, hereby declare, that the above manuscript which is submitted for publication in the STM Journals(s), is not published already in part or whole (except in the form of abstract) in any journal or magazine for private or public circulation, and, is not under consideration of publication elsewhere.

  • I/We will not withdraw the manuscript after 1 week of submission as I have read the Author Guidelines and will adhere to the guidelines.
  • I/We Author(s ) have niether given nor will give this manuscript elsewhere for publishing after submitting in STM Journal(s).
  • I/ We have read the original version of the manuscript and am/ are responsible for the thought contents embodied in it. The work dealt in the manuscript is my/ our own, and my/ our individual contribution to this work is significant enough to qualify for authorship.
  •  I/We also agree to the authorship of the article in the following order:

Author’s name                                    

 

1. ________________

2. ________________

3. ________________

4. ________________

 

We  Author(s) tick this box and would request you to consider it as our signature as we agree to the terms of this Copyright Notice, which will apply to this submission if and when it is published by this journal.