Design and Fabrication of Plant Irrigation System - Project Overview

This article discusses the Design and Fabrication of Plant Irrigation System project, including its objectives, distinctive activity, engineering knowledge and skills applied, identified issues and their solutions, and project review. The project aimed to develop an automated irrigation system for optimizing water usage in agricultural crops and verifying water scarcity in the field. The system had a wireless network of sensors for soil moisture, temperature, and conductivity, and a microcontroller-based gateway for controlling water quantity. The project also involved a robot for monitoring crop conditions. The article also highlights the author's role as a team member in the project, including responsibilities and contributions.

CE 3.1 Project Information
Name of the project: Design and Fabrication of Plant Irrigation System
Location of the project: Please fill
Project Duration: Please fill
Organization: Please fill
Role and Designation during the time: Team Member of the project
CE 3.2 Project Background
CE 3.2.1 Characteristics of the project
This project of Design and Fabrication of Plant Irrigation System was my third major
project in engineering career. An automated irrigation system was solely developed for
optimizing the usage of water for the agricultural crops and even for verifying the scarcity of
water within the field. The entire system has dispersed wireless network of the sensors of soil
moisture as well as temperature and conductive, which are being placed within the plants’
root zone. Moreover, the unit of agate way eventually handles all the sensor information,
triggers the actuators, and finally transmits data into the android mobile of the user. A
specific algorithm was made with these threshold soil moisture and temperature values,
which was then programmed within a gateway that is based on microcontroller for
controlling the water quantity. The future of this particular project is extremely advanced and
thus we monitored the crop’s condition that whether they would be affected by various
insects or not with the help of a robot. The robot is supposed to move in the field so that we
could easily monitor the crop’s condition.

CE 3.2.2 Objectives developed for the project
This project of Design and Fabrication of Plant Irrigation System had some of the
major objectives. These objectives are given below:
 To design an automatic plant irritation system.
 To fabricate the design with the help of a robot.
 To make sure whether the plant irrigation system would be helpful for the betterment
of the society.
CE 3.2.3 My area of work
I was an important member in the project team for designing and analyzing automatic
plant irrigation system with robotics. I ensured the fact that this project becomes successful. I
had significantly worked under the perfect supervision of my team leader and head of the
department. In the beginning, I had several doubts about the project. However, my team
members and team leader helped me to clear all my doubts and thus I was able to understand
the complete project perfectly. This project has even helped me in understanding the entire
concepts of automatic plant irrigation system as well as utilization of a robot. My major area
of work was to document the entire project report.

CE 3.2.4 Project Group
Figure 1: Team Members Associated with the project
CE 3.2.5 My responsibilities throughout the project
I had several significant responsibilities throughout the project. Since this was my
first big project, I undertook significant research within this particular project study. I made
sure that the documentation was done perfectly as I knew that this part was the most
important part of the project. Next, I checked the various processes, which are to be executed
in the project work. I subsequently customized, examined and assessed the products. I even
made the list of the raw materials, required in this project. I kept a record of the data that
were taken while calculating. I even analyzed and interpreted the taken data to design and
analyse the project. I also arranged for project team meetings that were hold in the end of
every week for understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the project.

CE 3.3 Distinctive Activity
CE 3.3.1 Comprehending the Theory of the project
The agriculture utilizes more than 85% of all the available resources of freshwater
throughout the worldwide and this particular percentage is supposed to continue as the
dominant in the consumption of water for the growth in population and high demands of
food. Since, there are only fewer resources of water available and because of the water
scarcity the technology was upgraded and many dissimilar techniques were invented for the
sustainable utilization of water to the agricultural crops. The scheduling of the automatic
irrigation constantly showed to be exclusively important for the purpose of optimizing the
cotton yields and the efficiency of water utilization with respect to the manual irrigation
system on the basis of the measurements of direct soil and water.
The efficient and effective application of the water irrigation is an important way for
mitigating any particular effect, which has eventually incremented the production of bio fuels
on the water resources. Various techniques of irrigation are present for reducing the water
amount applied in one unit of produced biomass, and thus improvising the efficiency of
irrigation despite of the type of crop.

Figure 2: Block Diagram of Plant Irrigation System (User End)
Figure 3: Block Diagram of the Robot End
This project comprised of two parts: one was the irrigation part, and the other part was
robot. The part of irrigation includes the conductive and temperature sensors and a
microcontroller that always monitored the temperature content and water content of soil. The
part of irrigation worked in two specific modes. One was automatic mode and the other was
manual mode. When the mode was automatic, the microcontroller controlled the motor of
irrigation on the basis of water content, and when the mode was manual the motor would

switch on or off on the basis of user’s command that is sent through Bluetooth connectivity.
We had utilized two specific sensors within this project of automatic plant irrigation
sytem. They are the temperature sensor and the conductive sensor. The temperature sensor
was utilized for checking the overall temperature of the climate and thus producing the
required temperature of the project. We had utilized the temperature sensor of LM35. This
LM35 sensor gave the output of 10mV for each 1 degree centigrade. The conductive sensor is
also known as the moisture sensor that is utilized for measuring the total water content of the
soils. For the conductive sensor, we have applied positive v/g. Two distinct types of motors
are also utilized in the project. They are the AC motor at the irrigation end and the DC motor
at the robot’s end. Moreover, we installed two types of cameras within the project of
automatic plant irrigation system. These two cameras were wired and wireless.
The DC motor that was utilized in the project started rotatingwithin the magnetic flux
by the field windings. The E.M.F. in this partiuclar case acted in the opposite idrectin to the
voltage supply. This E.M.F. is known as back E.M.F.
CE 3.3.2 Engineering knowledge and skills applied in the project
I had utilized my core mechanical engineering skills as well as knowledge in this
particular project. These core engineering skills and knowledge helped me to fulfil all my
responsibilities with perfection. I have even applied my excellent power of problem solving
and critical thinking. Moreover, I had good knowledge of AutoCAD that helped me to assist
my project leader in the designing of the project.

CE 3.3.2 Identified issues and their solutions
3.3.2.1 Issues
Few issues were faced while completing this project of Design and Fabrication of
Plant Irrigation System. The fist the foremost issue that we faced here was while designing
the system. It was the responsibility of one of the team member to complete the design of the
project. However, he was unable to do so and the output was coming erroneous. The next
issue occurred while collecting the raw materials of the materials. This was pushing our
project in major delay.
3.3.2.2 Solutions
I suggested relevant solutions to the problems. For the first issue, I suggested that I
should make the design. Since, I had the knowledge of AutoCAD and was quite fluent in this
software; I was finally successful in making the complete design perfectly. I was well
appreciated by my team members and project leader. For the second issue of collecting raw
materials for the project, I contacted few of my friends and thus they were successful in
sending me all the raw materials required in this project. Thus, our project was completed on
time successfully.
CE 3.3.3 Plan to produce creative and innovative work
Our plan for this particular project of Design and Fabrication of Plant Irrigation
System was to simply provide the best quality of work in the most effective as well as
innovative manner. We even met up in regular meetings and gatherings for discussing and
understanding our drawbacks within it and also for maintaining the product quality.
Moreover, we helped each other in completing each other’s duties properly.

CE 3.4 Project Review
CE 3.4.1 Project Overview
This project of Design and Fabrication of Plant Irrigation System was completed in a
professional manner and by providing proper professionalism and success in the field of
irrigation system. The automatic irrigation system was completed for the betterment in the
field of agricultural field and aspect. We were four members in the project including the
project member and all of the tasks of this project were done under the surveillance of the
head of the department.
CE 3.4.2 My contribution to work
I was a major part of this particular project. I was given the responsibility to document
the entire project. I completed my responsibility perfectly so that there exists no loophole in
my duty. Moreover, when one of my team members was unable to complete the designing
part of the project, I made the design perfectly and made the project perfectly and thus,
producing perfect output from the project. My next contribution in this particular project of
Design and Fabrication of Plant Irrigation System was that I arranged for all the raw
materials that were required in the project and thus was successful in completing the project
on time.