A review of wireless sensor networks in automated irrigation

Abstract

Objectives: The objective of making the irrigation system automated is not only to decrease the human intervention but also to irrigate optimal water to the crop without affecting its growth. The aim of this paper is to focus on existing technologies for making the irrigation process autonomous and effective use of wireless sensor networks. Method: Many existing methodologies use threshold based algorithm and fuzzy logic which lead to imprecise output. Findings: For the effective automated irrigation, the factors such as the algorithm for finding reference evapo-transpiration and the sensor node capabilities in terms of processing and communication unit and possible exceptions during the irrigation process all have to be considered to have a precise agriculture. Applications: Agriculture is an important area where sensors are deployed for providing abundant benefits like determining the water requirement of the crop, fertility of the soil, index of the leaf area, temperature of the leaf, data about local climate, water quality, water overflow, water continuity etc.