Precision Irrigation: An IoT-Enabled Wireless Sensor Network for Smart Irrigation Systems

Water management offers an effective solution to satisfy the world’s growing demand for water. Precision irrigation (PI), as an advanced concept in agriculture, has great promise to improve the efficiency of water use, as well as maintain or increase crop yield. PI involves different cutting-edge technologies such as the Internet of Thing (IoT), wireless sensor networks (WSN), and cloud computing. In this chapter, we present an overview of the PI concept and architecture including the most common wireless technologies used. Then, as a proof of concept, a real-time IoT-based smart irrigation system is designed. A number of wireless sensor nodes are deployed to monitor both soil moisture and temperature. Sensed data are transmitted to the gateway through the Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) communication protocol. A Web interface and mobile application are provided to users to control the level of water in the soil in real time. Users can take immediate action to open or close the pump through the mobile application.