CAWIS: Context aware wireless irrigation system

Water scarcity is one of the major problems faced by the whole world. In India, this situation is aggravated since agriculture is one of the major economies. As per the statistics of 2009, India has 35.12% of total land under irrigation. The objective of this work is to reduce the water usage in irrigation processes. In this regard, we have proposed a context aware wireless sensor network system for irrigation management. This multi-sensor system will continuously monitor the relevant environmental parameters, hydrological parameters, soil parameters and crop specific parameters to derive the context. These derived contexts will be used for automatic control and adaptation of the irrigation system. This context aware system uses the real-time sensor data to minimize the wastage of water used in the irrigation process. This research has also proposed an innovative design for horizontal angle adjustment of sprinkler nozzle using stepper motor. This remotely controllable sprinkler system can be wirelessly controlled, based on the decisions derived from the multi-sensors deployed in the agriculture field. The system also includes GSM module, which updates the user about the watering decisions being taken and executed on the fields. This paper describes the experimentation results of this system and it clearly shows that the system can effectively reduce water usage compared to the conventional systems.