Smart Control and Energy Efficiency in Irrigation Systems Using LoRaWAN

Abstract

Irrigation installations in cities or agricultural operations use large amounts of water and electrical energy in their activity. Therefore, optimising these resources is essential nowadays. Wireless networks offer ideal support for such applications. The long-range wide-area network (LoRaWAN) used in this research offers a large coverage of up to 5 km, has low power consumption and does not need additional hardware such as repeaters or signal amplifiers. This research develops a control and monitoring system for irrigation systems. For this purpose, an irrigation algorithm is designed that uses rainfall probability data to regulate the irrigation of the installation. The algorithm is complemented by checking the sending and receiving of information in the LoRa network to reduce the loss of information packets. In addition, two temperature and humidity measurement devices for LoRaWAN (THMDLs) and an electrovalve control device for LoRaWAN (ECDLs) were developed. The hardware and software were also designed, and prototypes were built with the development of the electronic board. The wide coverage of the LoRaWAN allows the covering of small to large irrigation areas.