Designing and Simulation of an Automated Irrigation Management System Deployed by using Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN)

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) is currently an active research area due to its exciting technology and potential in different applications. The advantages of wireless transmission are significant reduction and simplification in wiring, allows remote sensor monitoring, such as monitoring dangerous, hazardous, allow faster deployment and installation of different types of sensors. WSN is applied in various fields including medicine, transportation, agriculture, industrial process control, global-scale environmental monitoring and precision agriculture. Availability of fresh water is one of the elementary conditions for life on Earth, however, water is a limited resource, and is having demand from several economic sectors such as tourism, industry, and agriculture. In particular, irrigated agriculture is one of the major water-consuming sectors. The above-mentioned issues justify the need for having a system which will facilitate an efficient utilization of water in the irrigation processes.This paper describes an application of wireless sensor network in designing an automated irrigation management system which monitors real time water content in the soil. The system will allow water to flow to the soil only when the soil is in the state of "Water hungry". The designed system has three units namely; slave unit, master unit and the valve control unit.