Using wireless sensors for efficient data collection and optimum water usage in precision irrigation.

Abstract

The general ideology of a project is how to optimize water usage in irrigation based on the integration of measured soil moisture levels, temperature, and radiation, humidity and plant diameter. The research focused on the need for efficient data collection techniques from the wireless sensor nodes and analysis of this data for an efficient irrigation scheduling in order to optimize water usage. Issues which we looked into were the optimum placement of the sensor nodes, traffic aggregation and protocols for cooperative data forwarding. Models of different topologies were designed using different protocols and evaluated through simulations to come up with the best model that achieve optimum placement to minimize the number of nodes without compromising on the reading as well as improving data forwarding and aggregation. The model was cost effective as it displayed significant improvement in efficiency, power utilization and consumption and network lifetime and can be adopted for ordinary farmers in developing countries like Zimbabwe.