solar powered automatic irrigation system circuit

East Africa just like other places in the world is experiencing climate change. This at times creates prolonged dry weather conditions and many farmers suffer crop losses due to lack of enough water in their farm soils to enable optimum crop growth. Due to this some farmers have to utilize different water irrigation systems to provide water to their crops to ensure good crop harvests during prolonged dry weather conditions. I address this challenge by designing and constructing an effective simple solar powered automatic irrigation system which can pump water and irrigate a farmer’s garden during times of prolonged dry weather conditions. This system utilizes renewable energy by converting sunlight energy to direct current. The project is applicable because sunlight energy is plenty in most parts of East Africa especially during prolonged dry weather conditions.

This project basically consists of a working prototype of a solar powered automatic irrigation system that uses a solar panel to convert sunlight energy to direct current (dc) that charges a 12 volt 7Ahr @ 20hr dc battery which charges through a charge controller circuit. The battery powers the system circuit through a voltage regulator which provides 5V dc to power the microcontroller unit, the moisture sensor, the relay switch circuit and the liquid crystal display (LCD). The water irrigation pump is powered by a 12V dc power supply from the battery. A moisture sensor monitors the moisture content of the garden soils and it sends an analog signal to the analog to digital converter section of the microcontroller unit. According to the amount of moisture in the soil, the microcontroller unit is programmed to send a signal to the relay switch circuit to switch on or off the water irrigation pump. The temperature condition at the farm is displayed on the Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). LEDs are also used to indicate the condition of the water irrigation pump and whole system.