Design of precision irrigation system based on wireless sensor network and fuzzy control

In order to accurately determine the crop water requirement and the proper strategy of precision irrigation, and reach real-time and automatic irrigation with proper quantities of water in place, a precision irrigation system based on ZigBee wireless sensor networks (WSN) and fuzzy control technology was designed. The ZigBee-WSN was used to transmit the irrigation control signal, collect the soil water potential signal and micrometeorological informations including air temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation, wind velocity and so on. The soil water potential and crop evaporation calculated using the FAO56 Penman-Monteith equation were taken as input variables of fuzzy controller, and the multiple-factor control regular database was established for the fuzzy irrigation control system. The fuzzy control of crop irrigation water requirements was realized. The test results show that the system has many advantages, such as economic, practical, with high communication reliability and control accuracy. Especially, this system is quite appropriate for medium and small-sized precision irrigation areas.