In the present day scenario, Agriculture uses 85% of fresh water resources and this percentage will increase in the future years. Hence the water and food demand should be met by the recent technologies for sustainable use of water. The proposed method is based on an irrigation control system to optimize the water use for agriculture. Irrigation control system that consists of a distributed wireless network of soil moisture and temperature sensors deployed in plant root zones. Each sensor node involved a humidity sensor probe, a temperature sensor, a microcontroller for data acquisition, and a radio transceiver. The sensor measurements are transmitted to a microcontroller-based receiver. This gateway permits the automated activation of irrigation when the threshold values humidity and temperature are reached. This project is designed for timely application of the water required to meet the water needs of the crops.

The automated irrigation system hereby reported, consisted of two components, wireless sensor unit (WSU) and a wireless information unit (WIU), linked by radio transceivers that allowed the transfer of soil moisture and temperature data, implementing a WSN that uses ZigBee technology. The WIU has also a GSM module to transmit the data to a mobile network. The information can be remotely monitored online through a graphical application through Internet access devices.

In this method, PIC Microcontroller (PIC16F877A) is used in both the Transmitter and Receiver sections. The soil moisture sensor and temperature sensor are placed in the root zone of the plants. These sensors are used to send information about the plant whether to irrigate the plant or not. These sensors measure the values in analog format. ADC is used to convert the analog values into digital values. The digitized values are displayed in 16×2 Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) which is interfaced to the micro controller unit.

Through ZigBee module, the information is transmitted to the receiver section. The motor operates according to the information. The GSM module is used to send a message to mobile phone about the operation of motor. A Personal Computer (PC) is used to select crops for irrigation purpose. The time can be schedule the time for irrigation in two modes. One is auto mode and another is manual mode.