A low-cost smart irrigation system proposal for small farmers

Abstract

Objective: To propose a low-cost smart irrigation system that can be implemented by any small farmer to improve water management.

Design/methodology/approach: A smart irrigation system was designed so that different nodes collect temperature and humidity data from the soil and send it wirelessly via ESP-Now protocol to a receiver node, which manages data and then sends it to another receiver node via LoRa communication protocol. Finally, this latter node sends data to a google-sheet and acts as a webserver via Wi-Fi, so that users can access to the data via Wi-Fi, locally or worldwide.

Results: The system was tested measuring and sending data to the server every 10 seconds to prove its reliability. The system proposed consisted of three nodes installed on a two-hectare plantation area. ESP-NOW nodes were able to send data without any losses at a maximum distance of 73.21m. LoRa node was able to send data over 389.45m distance.

Limitations on study/implications: The system was implemented over a simulated area, not on a real plantation. Also, estimations of total energy consumption were made for each node, but experimental results are still in progress.

Findings/conclusions: The system proposed was able to collect and to send the whole data without losses successfully. The system architecture is flexible; more ESP-NOW nodes can be added if they are required. Also, if the distance between farmer’s home and plantation area is greater than the distance achieved by the LoRa node, more LoRa nodes can be added to reach the server node.