Problem That We Are Trying To Solve

Ever Wondered whilst you are away from home and worried about who will water your favourite and expensive rose plants? Well this project came to my mind once i was out of town and found all the plants in my garden spoiled. So we had to deal with the following problems: Watering of the garden should be automatically controlled Plants should not be spoiled due to scarcity of water. Nor they should be watered excessively. Therefore we tried to design a circuit that provides just the right amount of water to the plants. So we came up with the idea of Garden automation system. Garden automation system waters the plants automatically. It senses the level of moisture in the soil.When the landsacpe ,where we have plants,is devoid of sufficient moisrure it turns on the water supply.the water seeps down in the soil and the gadget turns off after a while. The main features of this project are:

Automatically waters the plants Avoids wastage of water

Consistent watering maintains our landscape and reduces cost and efforts of plant replacement. Moreover, I need not worry about forgetting to water my precious plants while I am away travelling or too preoccupied with my office work.

Key Features:
Easy to use. Low cost. Flexible. Optimum usage of water. Works with any kind of soil. Wired system. Single sensor is used. Environment friendly. No need to trouble your neighbours for watering garden while you are away. Eliminates the cost and efforts for plant replacement. Maintains your garden while you are away for holidays. Regular and optimum watering maintains your lanscape.

High Level Block Diagram

SOIL WATER AC MOISTURE SENSOR TOR SOLENOID

REFERENCE SOURCE VALVE SUPPLY SUPPLY Moisture SWITCH RELAY of soil

INLET

OUTLET
PLANT

Future Scope
The difficulty arises when well be gardening a large premises like a well flourished flora of museum,hotels,residential buildings,monuments etc. In these cases the sytem can be taken to a higher level where we could incorporate more intelligence to this system. The whole idea is that it must be compatible with any type of soil texture. Taking it to the higher level of intelligence will include certain advanced features System will work for any type of soil. Multiple sensors can be used around the whole area.These sensors will sense the variations in moisture in different areas. This data is then recorded efficiently using a data logger. It can also be modified according to the water requirements of different areas and other factors such as soil retentivity. Configuring these multiple sensors into a wireless network will allow a large area to be automated. Signals from all the wireless networks will go to a central processing unit which in turn will control the water system and waters the targeted area. In this way system is less complex than the wired system. Using more precise components with smaller tolerance values will increase the reliability of the system.

PROTOTYPE REALIZATION
The idea of automatically watering the plant requires sensing of variation of physical parameter which is soil moisture. Thus a transducer is required which senses the soil moisture. Two metal probes are buried under soil which act as sensor. More water makes the soil conduct electricity more easily (less resistance), while dry soil conducts electricity more poorly (more resistance). Rod length and spacing are not the most significant varibles. The probes should be long enough to reach the moist soil and not so close together that they are likely to touch accidentally keeping them about an inch apart works great. Basic idea is to hook up one end of sensor to 5 volt and the other end to ground. To keep the probes from rusting, material choosen is aluminium. The soil moisture is to be calibrated it in terms of electrical resistance, so for better accuracy a 47 kilo ohm resistor is taken. Circuit is based on the probes going from an open when it is dry to some finite resistance when it is moist. The output from sensing circuit is fed into comparator IC LM358. Another input of this design is the reference voltage, Vref. Our main aim is to set Vref. Vref is set higher than Vin. When the soil is dry, the voltage drop being higher, the input to the comparator is low compared to Vref. On the contrary, when the soil is moist, reverse action will take place. First we used a circuit with two value resistance which divided the applied voltage into half but did not work. Therefore we selected TL431 IC and potentiometer which provides adjustable Vref . For switching action we need NPN transistor with emitter tied to ground. The purpose of using NPN is that it gets ON when comparator output is high and OFF when comparator output is LOW. This transistor controls the Solenoid Valve which is basically an inductive load. A solenoid valve is an electromechanical valve. The problem that arises with inductive load is spikes in the output waveform. To remove spikes, we use a free wheeling diode in parallel to solenoid valve. Now output waveform appears uniform, i.e without spikes. To show this action, we have used LED which indicates the ON and OFF action of solenoid valve. When LED glows, the solenoid valve is open and vice-versa. A non-polarized capacitor is also used between Vcc and ground near comparator to filter noise present in the power supply line. This capacitor removes noise present if any and sends it to ground. A resistance is also put between Vcc and ground near comparator to protect the circuit from damage. Relay is used to control the AC supply to the solenoid valve and bulk capacitor is provided to remove ripples generated in relay.

TARGET APPLICATIONS

Can be used in gardens, Completely automated sprinkler system. Can be used in irrigation system. Can be used in green houses. In botanical gardens.

BILL OF MATERIALS Sr No.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
10.

COMPONENTS
Resistors Capacitors Free wheeling diode Diodes Relay Solenoid Valve Transistor (metal can package) Potentiometer Transformer
Integrated Circuit

VALUES
47k, 2.7k, 5.6k,1k 10nf, 100f, IN5819 IN 12 Volt DC 230 Volt AC 2N2222A 3296 Type 12 volt DC
LM358, CD7805, CD7812, TL431

11.

PRODUCT VISUALISATION
Different modules were thought of while implementing the idea of garden automation system. The bot is to be placed in the denizen of planted area. The system is alerted when there is need for moisture. The signal conducts through the sensor plates. This signal is used to switch the level of water supply.In between the sensor and switch a valve is incorporated. This valve provides feedback to the water system because enough moisture level is approached to switch off the valve and hence the water supply.

TAKING IT TO COMMERCIALIZATION
The idea which is implementd here will become far effective and useful for commercial use if modified accordingly. Now this system is viable at just domestic level like kitchen gardens only. If improvement is made over the intelligence of this system,it could automate a whole variety of flora like large residential ares,museums etc. This will also require: Use of more precise components in terms of range,tolerance level and quality etc. Certain physical parameters which directly affect the ideal working of the system will be taken into consideration.Experimentation over the effect of Temperature[temperature sensor], Humidity[humidity sensor], Ions,oxides and electrolytes in soil will be carried out to make it commercially viable. Any electrical system if working around damp area like this one,will neccesitate a waterproof enclosure of whole system so it can be fitted in the soil along with circuit. Commercially it has large scope in irriagtion systems. Sensor probes can be made precise. Reliability will be taken into consideration.

FEATURES ACHEIVED:
EASY TO USE-The design is quite simple to use. It can be placed according to your convienence in the garden .Vref can be easily adjusted for the desireable output. AVOIDS WATER WASTAGE- Optimum amount of watering is done. System switches off supply of water when required. PORTABILITY- Product can be easily carried from one place to the another without any inconvienence and also requires less space for setup. ENVIRONMENT FRIENDLY- Does not involve the usage of resorces that cause any kind of harm to the environment. Low cost SOIL MOISTURE SENSOR USED CAN BE USED FOR LARGE SCALE AND LARGE APPLICATIONS FULLY AUTOMATED- The product is semi automated but can be made fully automated by