Solar-Powered Smart Irrigation System

Abstract

South Africa is a country currently facing water and electricity crises due to the unmatched demand and supply of these utilities. In irrigation systems, there is a high rate of water wastage since watering can sometimes take place when it is not necessary especially in the traditional irrigation system. The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is an enabler of the transition from traditional to automated irrigation systems. A smart irrigation system that is powered by solar energy was designed and implemented in this work to optimize the consumption of water and electricity in irrigation processes. The device is designed for manual and automatic operations with communication through a Bluetooth module. Experiments were conducted and the results obtained showed that the device offered 25.2% and 57.8% of savings in water usage and energy expenditure respectively compared to a situation without the proposed system.