Smart Automated Water Sprinkler (SAWS): Residential irrigation by boundary mapping and variable water pressure control

The Smart Automated Water Sprinkler (SAWS) System is an innovative approach to lawn irrigation that allows the watering pattern to match the contours of the yard. It utilizes a mapping technology to deliver water to only the marked grassy area of the property, avoiding water delivery to driveways, homes, fences, and other unintended landscape fixtures. Consequently, the SAWS system helps homeowners save water, money, inconvenience, and time, and ultimately benefits the environment by reducing countless gallons of water wasted every year when people water their lawn. Currently, other lawn watering solutions, such as permanently installed irrigation systems or standard hose-attached sprinklers, are expensive, wasteful, inconvenient, and/or has limited range of distance/orientation to be a good choice for unusually shaped lawns. The SAWS system, with its components for mapping and water delivering mechanism, is designed to be housed in a PVC tube with wheels mounted on either end for ease of operation. In mapping mode, the unit is rolled around the perimeter of a desired area. It utilizes inertial mapping with an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) to map the boundaries of any terrain of an arbitrary shape and size assuming that its interior contains no objects or obstacles. The data for these mapped areas are stored indefinitely allowing for one-time mapping. In usage mode, the unit is rolled into the interior of a previously mapped area with a standard garden hose attached. The unit then detects its location within the specified boundary of the map and, with a water flow valve controlled by a stepper motor and an infrared beam sensor, starts directing water with a spray nozzle in such a manner not to substantially overflow the marked boundaries. In testing, the SAWS system was able to produce a perimeter map as specified by the user. Once placed and water provided, the SAWS system was able to adjust to the proper spray distance as the spray nozzle was rotated, and thus avoid watering unintended area and objects.