Design of a Soil Moisture Sensor for Application in a Smart Watering System

This paper develops an optimal agricultural irrigation system based on a wireless sensor network (WSN) for use in smart agriculture. The aim is to design and develop a control system that makes use of button sensors in a crop field with data management carried out via a web application. The three components of the system are the hardware, a capacitive soil moisture sensor, and a web application. The first component is designed and implemented as a connected control hardware box to collect crop data. The second component is a soil moisture sensor used for field monitoring, connected to the control box. Its novel feature is the moisture sensor probe designed to connect directly to the ESP8266-12F microcontroller instead of using the TLC555 IC as a traditional sensor. The final ingredient is used primarily to control crop watering via a web application, which offers the user automatic or manual control. The automatic control function uses data from the soil moisture sensor to generate a watering schedule. Comparing the two sensors' soil moisture levels reveals approximately equal accuracy even during structural analysis and real experiments. The system proposed in this work is developed in the context of promoting digital innovation in agriculture.