Advanced System for Garden Irrigation Management

Water is a limited resource. It is crucial promoting water efficiency strategies to help decrease the amount of water wasted. This study describes a system (iRain), developed by the authors, which aims to ensure autonomous and efficient irrigation in urban gardens. It consists of a net of sensors and actuators with Zigbee communication and control software for storage and availability of monitoring data on a web portal in real time. In manual mode, the irrigation management is the responsibility of the irrigation manager in order to control the system from the portal. In automatic mode, the system prevents watering if there is a forecast of precipitation (up to 3 days) and if the humidity of the soil has not fallen below a critical value. In this mode the decision is made at the local station. The system also gives preference to irrigation at night and during periods of light wind in order to obtain more accurate and efficient irrigation.