Solar Operated PLC Based Automated Irrigation System With Fault Preventer

Abstract

Nowadays, farmers are facing difficulties by power shunt down and to control the water pipe valve at proper time to irrigate their farm lands. To overcome this, embedded system applications are being used in the existing system. But it has a drawback such as valve power supply failure or valve coil failure which leads to burst of pipe-line and motor gets overloaded, which causes a severe loss to the cultivator. To avoid the above-mentioned problem, Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) and solar panel is introduced in the irrigation system which controls the entire system automatically. During day times if there is enough sunlight the power is obtained from the solar and the water is sucked out from the well and stored in the tank, later on it is used whenever there is a requirement of water to the irrigation land. It is a standalone system which does not depend on other power sources. After switching ON the motor using PLC, Flow Detector is used to detect the water flow in the pipe. If the flow detector could not detect the water flow within two seconds from the ON time, the motor will be switched OFF automatically by the PLC which prevents the burst of water pipe line. By adopting this method, the consumption of non-renewable energy resources can be minimized, and renewable energy sources can be utilized which will create an eco-friendly environment it also avoids the uneven distribution of water to the lands and reduces the manual operation. The proposed system can automatically control the valve and motor at the specified time intervals as required by the farmer or based on the moisture content of the soil.