Abstract— The application of wireless sensor network human error due to inability to receive accurate and fast
(WSN) for a water irrigation control monitoring is information, or wrongly forecasting the condition at the
composed of a number of sensor nodes with a networking control site, especially in a condition where the water
capability that can be deployed for an ad hoc and level might increase or decrease unexpectedly due to
continuous monitoring purpose. The parameters involved in
weather condition, for example during a heavy rain.
the water reservation control such as the water level and
motor movement of the gate controlling the flow of water There are several works on the application of WSN
will be measured in the real time by the sensors that send for irrigation system such as in [1], where a distributed
the data to the base station or control/monitoring room. wireless sensor network was used in a variable-rate water
This paper proposes how such monitoring system can be irrigation to maximize the productivity and water saving.
setup emphasizing on the aspects of low cost, easy ad hoc In [2], an application of wireless sensor network
installation and easy handling and maintenance. The use of specifically in a water distribution monitoring network
wireless system for monitoring purpose will not only reduce was discussed in term of channel measurement approach
the overall monitoring system cost in term of labor cost, but to determine an appropriate path-loss model.
will also provide a flexibility in term of distance or location.
This paper describes the use of high transmission
In this paper, the fundamental design and implementation
of WSN featuring a Zigbee Technology together with the power with a relatively low power consumption Zigbee
IEEE 802.15.4 compatible transceiver and the simple water based WSN for water irrigation control monitoring
flow control circuit is proposed. The developed platform is system. A multiple of sensors are used to detect the level
cost-effective and allows easy customization. Several of water in the reservoir area and based on the signal
preliminary results of measurement to evaluate the from the sensors, a simple electronic circuit will either
reliability and effectiveness of the system are also presented. open or close the gate controlling the water flow. It is
important to be mentioned here, the circuit presented in
Keywords— wireless sensor network, water irrigation this paper is on a conceptual scale and not yet in the form
control, monitoring, Zigbee technology that can be directly applied to the available water
irrigation controlling gate. The water level condition and
I. INTRODUCTION
the gate movement data is wirelessly sent by the wireless
Water reservation control is a crucial facility sensor network based on the Zigbee Technology to the
especially in the irrigation system for agricultural main monitoring base station and all these activities are
activities. It is important to make sure the amount of monitored through the developed graphical user interface
water in the reservoir is always at its appropriate level (GUI) at the monitoring base station. The base station
and able to be flowed to irrigation system when it reaches capability can be extended to not only monitor the
the maximum level to prevent water from flooding the condition of one facility but several more same facilities
surrounding area. When the reservoir is at its low level, a covering a large area.
flow of water from other sources must be allowed to Zigbee is a communication standard for use in the
maintain appropriate level of reservation. wireless sensor network defined by the Zigbee Alliance
In Malaysia, the gate controlling the water irrigation [3] that adopting the IEEE 802.15.4 standard for its
can be categorized into two types; one that manually reliable communication. It is chosen due to its features
operated using man force and another one that uses and that fulfill the requirement for a low cost, easy to use,
electrical motor to move the gate. In most cases, a person minimal power consumption and reliable data
is in charged of checking the level in a predetermined communication between sensor nodes.
interval of time and to take an appropriate action of
opening and closing the gate controlling the water flow.
This will expose the system to a failure caused by a
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2009 IEEE Symposium on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ISIEA 2009), October 4-6, 2009, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
V. MEASUREMENT
A. Power Consumption
The following Table I shows the average power
consumption for the end device, measured for both
during active and sleep mode condition.
TABLE I
END DEVICE POWER CONSUMPTION
Fig. 5 GUI developed for monitoring purpose
IV. MEASUREMENT
Several measurements are carried out to evaluate the
performance and effectiveness of the Zigbee based WSN
on the irrigation control system to confirm the reliability
and feasibility of using it for the actual monitoring
purpose.
A. Power Consumption
Low power consumption is an important criterion in
the WSN deployment to make sure it is able to operate in It is important to be mentioned here that the above
long time with minimum maintenance. The power measured average power consumption is not considering
consumption measurement is only carried for the end the power consumed by the module only, but also
device as the coordinator is practically mains powered at includes the voltage regulation component and its
the base station. peripheral circuits consists of basic components such as
During the measurement, the end device is configured resistor and capacitor.
to be in a timer sleep mode condition. The node is Based on the above result, the lifetime of the battery
configured to wake up at every 30 minutes interval for can be calculated as follow.
100ms just to send the data to the base station. For the Power consumption during active mode :
rest of the time, the end device is in a sleep condition. = 35.5 mA x 100ms / (60 x 60 x 1000)
= 0.00099 mAH
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2009 IEEE Symposium on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ISIEA 2009), October 4-6, 2009, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Power consumption during sleep mode : described in this paper, the prototype hardware (sensor
= 28.8 mA x 30 minutes/60 and control circuitry); and the software (GUI) for the
= 14.4 mAH monitoring application is successfully developed.
Based on the measurement result, the end device
Total power comsumption = 14.4 + 0.00099 ≈ 14.4 node able to operate for 12 hours without the need of
mAH installing a new battery. It means that it can be used in an
Battery capacity = 170 mAH ad hoc style for short period of time. The obtained result
Expexted battery lifetime = 170/14.4 = 11.81 hours however, can be improved if circuitry for the module
power supply is carefully considered to use a component
with very low power consumption plus a smart power
B. Coverage Performance management that can reduce the voltage supply necessary
The following Fig. 7 shows the coverage performance for the module during the sleep mode. The programming
based on the LQI value. Between 10 to 50m distance of tasks carried out in the module can also be customized
from the base station, an average uniform signal strength to further reduce the current consumption.
is obtained comply with the use of omni directional On the coverage performance, with the use of high
antenna. In order to further evaluate the maximum power transmission, minimal number of sensor nodes for
distance that can be reached, one direction is chosen and maximum area coverage can be expected. However, other
the distance of end device from the base station is measurement at several more different environments is
extended. As shown in Fig. 8, reliable signal strength can necessary to obtain a more reliable data that also
still be obtained at 100% success of packet delivery up to considering the worst case scenario.
the distance of 210 m. The decrease of the LQI value Overall, the proposed implementation of high power
with the distance extension is expected. Unfortunately the Zigbee based WSN for water irrigation control
maximum reachable distance cannot be determined as the monitoring system offer a low power consumption with
distance can not be further extended due to the high reliability based on the preliminary result is
geographical constraint. The use of router between the presented. The use of high power WSN is suitable for
end device nodes and the coordinator is expected to activity in industries involving large area monitoring
further increase the coverage distance. such as manufacturing, constructing, mining etc. Another
important fact of this system is the easy installation of the
Link Quality Indicator based on Distance and system where the base station can be place at the local
Direction from Coordinator residence close to the target area and the monitoring task
can be done by any person with minimal training at the
250 beginning of the system installation.
200 0 degree
150 90 degrees
REFERENCES
LQI
0
10
30
50
70
90
Electronics, 2006.
11
13
15
17
19
21
Distance (meter)
[8] You Ke, Liu Ruiqiang and Zhang Cuixia, “Work Mode of
ZigBee WSN,” 2008 International Conference on Information
Fig. 8 Value of LQI for extended distance up to 210 meters Management, Innovation Management and Industrial
Engineering ICIII, vol. 2, pp.536-538.
[9] Drew Gislason, Zigbee Wireless Networking, Newnes, 2008.
VI. CONCLUSION
A reliable monitoring system for water irrigation
control facility is crucial as a failure caused by a sole
dependent on human may effect over large area. As
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