A SOLAR TRACKER ASSISTED AUTOMATIC IRRIGATION SYSTEM FOR AGRICULTURAL FIELDS

In the present state of affairs, one of the greatest problems faced by the world is ever increasing spoilage in a comparatively easy to manage food grains chain, reason being uncontrolled usage of the water. Also, the continuous extraction of water from the earth reduces the water level due to which lots of land is coming slowly in the zones of un-irrigated land. Therefore, we are designing this automatic irrigation system which estimates the soil moisture of the plant and releasing water as needed thereby minimizing excess water usage. Also our work aims at providing real time updates to the farmer about the soil, weather and crop conditions so that the farmer can also have the manual control over the water pump using the internet thus maintaining an efficient future watering schedule. But, this setup requires considerable amount of power, and looking at the impending scarcity of nonrenewable resources, we are considering the use of solar energy to power-up our proposed system. Use of solar panel is very popular and economic, but fixed solar panel may not be able to generate much of precious energy, due to the transition of the sun from east to west. So, we are integrating a novel solar tracking system, where the solar panel is coupled to a servo motor which tracks the sun so that the solar panel remains inclined towards the sun, most of the time of the day. The proposed system is tested in real time and the results show better performance in terms of power and efficiency.