IoT-Based Smart Watering System Towards Improving the Efficiency of Agricultural Irrigation

A large amount of water is wasted in agriculture today due to inefficient irrigation techniques. By monitoring the soil moisture of crops and the pH level of the irrigation water, not only can water be conserved, but healthier plants can also be cultivated. Even though several smart watering systems have been proposed, currently none of the proposed systems consider both the pH of irrigation water and soil moisture together. This research proposes an IoT-Based Smart Watering System (IBSWS) which addresses both of these concerns by using pH and soil moisture sensors to take real-time data and process it through a cloud environment using microcontrollers. This enables continuous monitoring of soil moisture and pH levels. In addition, IBSWS implements a mobile app for farmers who use the system to monitor and control the irrigation system as well as the crop environment. The IBSWS prototype demonstrates that the use of sensors and WiFi-enabled microcontrollers over a cloud environment can be used to implement such a system and properly manage crop irrigation.