“AGRICON”- Automated Agricultural Controller

Abstract

Current research focuses on precision agriculture, soil conservation, crop irrigation scheduling and water quantity control for increasing water use efficiency. There is a need to develop new indigenous irrigation controller to improve farm productivity and input use efficiency of water and other nutrients. This paper presents the design and development of Irrigation controller System built around PIC16F877A microcontroller. The system consists of microcontroller, peripherals including RTC, LCD and driver circuit relay to switch on/off a motor. The system is made to control the automation of green house. For controlling the automation of green house, we need to measure different parameters i.e. soil moisture, water contents, intensity, humidity, wind speed, temperature etc. The key objective of this paper is to report on a developed indigenous low cost time based microcontroller based irrigation scheduler which performs user defined functions and outputs commands to derive appropriate actuators (solenoid valves, motor). The irrigation controller is the "brain" of an entire irrigation system. It supervises the flow of water and fertilizer to the plants, therefore, enables the farmer, or the gardener, to obtain optimized results: A successful crop or a beautiful garden, by using an optimum amount of water and fertilizer.