Soil Moisture Indicator

Soil Moisture Indicator
In this project, the main concept exploited in designing of this equipment is the variation of soil resistance or the soil voltage depending upon the variation of the soil moisture. In other words the soil exhibits a variation in its resistance whenever the water content in the soil increase or decreases. As the moisture in the soil increases the soil resistance decreases that also amounts to saying that the soil voltage increases. Thus it would be incorrect to state that the soil voltage is directly proportional to the soil moisture content. Accordingly it follows that the soil voltage is maximum if the water content in the soil is maximum i.e., the soil is totally wet and the soil voltage is minimum (approximately equal to zero) in a dry soil The high dry soil resistance may be owed to the fact that the absence of the water content provides no conducting medium of the current flow. It may be then considered to be similar to an insulator. When the soil is watered until it is fully wet it then begins to conduct current like a metallic conductor. In the intermediate stages i.e., as the soil moisture increases from 0% to 100% the soil voltage increases from minimum to maximum. The circuit basically consists of a step down center tap transformer that reduces the 230V supply from the mains to 12V peak-to-peak voltage. This is then fed to a bridge rectifier that converts this 12V peak-to-peak AC voltage to 12V DC voltage. The output of the bridge rectifier for obvious reasons have very high ripple factor. Thus in order to decrease the ripple the rectifier IC is used. This circuit now provides an output voltage of 12V DC. This is used as the Vcc or the biasing voltage for the next part of the circuit comprising of the DARLINGTON CIRCUIT. In some instances the need arises for an amplifier with high input impedance. To achieve larger input, here the two transistors form a composite pair, the input resistance of the second transistor constituting the emitter for the first. More specifically, the Darlington circuit consists of two cascaded emitter followers with infinite emitter resistance in the first stage.

The output range of the Darlington circuit is proportional to the input range. In order to use this voltage, it reduces to a more appropriate range by employing a signal conditioning circuit. This circuit is designed to have a suitable gain to adjust the voltage range. The output of this circuit is then passed through a voltage follower to nullify the loading effects. The voltage available at the end of the voltage follower is the value that is actually proportional to the soil voltage. This is then fed to a buzzer of a predetermined specifications stimulus to the input response. In other words the buzzer is set off when the input voltage to it is high which happens in case of the dry soil. This gives the birds eye view of the circuit for the indication of the wetness or dryness of the soil.

India is a land of farmers. With agriculture as the main occupation great deals of research and developments have been taking place in the latest and the most upcoming filed of AGRO-ELECTRONICS. This field of science is completely devoted to the modernization of the agricultural practices. It becomes all the more essential to keep the agricultural production in par with the growing Indian population. A lot of attention should also be given to the quality of the produce keeping in mind the quantity. With the aid of ELECTRONICS AND INSTRUMENTATION TECHNOLOGY this field of science Agro-Electronics is proving itself to be a boon to the farmers. Some of its advance researches have now provided the farmers with latest equipments such as the SOIL MOISTURE DETECTOR, ULTRA-SONIC PEST CONTROL and many more. The detection of the soil moisture is one of the most important pre-requisite for many of the soil dependant activities. Reliable and accurate soil moisture monitoring and control for: Bioremediation Wastewater Reclamation Landfill Management Agriculture Considering agriculture, it helps the farmer to decide, depending upon the type of plant or crop, the type soil and its water retention properties the amount of water it requires. Especially since water nowadays is very precious resource and drought hit is not something rare, it should be used more judiciously and cautiously. This equipment comes to the rescue in such situation helping the farmer with the optimal usage of water. Precision irrigation scheduling based on knowledge of soil moisture levels is very important for horticultural crops, especially those of high value. Precision irrigation scheduling is closely related, not

only to crop yield and quality, but also to conversation of irrigation water and reduction in non-point source pollution from irrigated agriculture. Moisture determination of soil is required in agriculture also while using certain machines, when applying fertilizer, during sowing and spraying. The determination of moisture content of grain is a very important quality characteristic during the harvest, purchase and sale but also during transportation and storage, and is defined by standards. Moisture content and temperature are essential characteristics for biological decomposing processes during composting and on waste disposals. The moisture content of snow is important for predicting avalanches and introducing steps of prevention. By continuously controlling soil moisture landslides and mud-streams can be forecasted and/or prevented in high mountain regions. The determined moisture content of soil can be used further as reference value for radiometric measurements made by aircrafts or satellites. Measuring the soil moisture, collecting the data, and interpreting the data are essential in order to convert soil moisture information into practical irrigation decisions.
AIM TO RIG UP AND TEST SOIL MOISTURE INDICATOR

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Recent advances in remote sensing have shown that soil moisture can be measured by a variety of techniques. This has proved very useful as it has demonstrated a quantitative ability to measure soil moisture under a variety of topographic and vegetation cover conditions so that it could be extended to routine measurements from a satellite system. The major factor inhibiting wide spread use of remotely sensed soil moisture data in hydrology is the lack of data-sets and optimal satellite systems. Soil structure is the major factor in determining a soils ability to retain and transmit fluids. Thus, it is very important that one knows a specific soils structure in order to manage it efficiently. Soil structure has mostly been investigated in qualitative terms, for example, concerning the characteristic shape and cohesiveness of soil aggregates, clods. Because the unsaturated hydraulic properties are fundamentally quantitative, to theoretically relate them to soil structure requires the development of concepts and techniques that quantify soil structure.
The figure shows the required soil composition in the tropical countries such as India for the optimum growth of the plants. As it can be seen that water content ins the soil composes nearly 25%.

The structure of the soil is relevant for agriculture and biodiversity as it determines nutrient and water availability. Several processes determine soil structure, they are: weathering processes (soil erosion), age of soil, parent material, and the vegetation (both via the production of soil organic matter and the rooting systems). There are two types of weathering processes: mechanical (glaciers, freeze/thaw cycles, waterways) and chemical (oxidation, dissolving in water, hydrolysis, and carbonation) whereby the amount of water or moisture determines the rate of weathering. The water quantity in rivers and lakes can influence the groundwater level in surrounding areas while in coastal areas, groundwater levels might experience changes because of a rise in sea level. Climate induced changes in water consumption by society (cities, industry and agriculture) will also change the groundwater level. Structure, the arrangement of particles in a soil or other porous medium, is a major influence on the hydraulic properties of the medium. Often it is the most important known factor, because the arrangement of particles plays the biggest role in determining the size and shape of the pores that conduct water. Analogous effects are important to the hydraulic properties of fractured rocks. While nutrients are important to plant growth, more critical to their vitality, plant requires moisture. Water is essential for the transport of nutrients to and from the plant. This transport occurs laterally within the soil, and vertically within the plant. Water therefore, is the lifeblood of the system. Without sufficient moisture, photosynthesis is impossible. Perhaps more importantly is a proper balance of available water. Root system of the plants also requires air in order to survive, with too much water, plants will literally drown. Before diving into soil water measurement, it will be helpful to explain some key concepts about the soil moisture. In the soil, water adheres to soil particles and occupies the spaces between soil particles, called pores. After a season of rainfall or a thorough irrigation, all of the pores in the soil are completely filled with water. This leaves the soil saturated. Gravity then begins to pull the water out of larger soil pores, leaving air in those spaces. Once all of the water that gravity can pull away has been removed, the soil is at its naturally full level of water content. This is called field capacity, abbreviated as FC.

Since sandy soils have generally larger pores than clay soils, gravity will remove a larger percentage of water from sandy soils. Thus, sandy soils have a lower field capacity than clay soils. After the soil has reached field capacity, its water content will remain stable unless outside forces remove it. There are two such forces. The minor force is evaporation at the soil surface. The major force by far is extraction by the roots of the trees and plants.

A number of techniques or rather principles can be used to detect the soil moisture. The water content of the soil affects a number of other parameters of the soil for example: resistance, soil voltage, temperature, roughness and dielectric constant. Thus the moisture content can be determined by many physical parameters such as bulk density, concentration of sugar solutions, consistency of pulp and conductivity of soil. Accordingly there are different kinds of soil moisture detectors available with some of them being the radiometer which sense changes in the temperature of the soil depending on the moisture content. Microwave soil moisture detectors are also available. But these equipments sometimes though are accurate, may prove complicated in operation and construction. Here is another simple procedure to rig up a circuit that not only detects the water content of the soil, but also displays it as a value proportional to a fixed parameter. In this project the main concept exploited in designing of this equipment in the variation of the soil resistance or the soil voltage depending upon the variation of the soil moisture. In other words the soil exhibits a variation in its resistance whenever the water content in the soil increase or decreases. As the moisture in the soil increases the soil resistance decreases that also amounts to saying that the soil voltage increases. Thus it would be incorrect to state that the soil voltage is directly proportional to the soil moisture content. Accordingly it follows that the soil voltage is maximum if the water content in the soil is maximum i.e., the soil is totally wet and the soil voltage is minimum (approximately equal to zero) in a dry soil. The high dry soil resistance may be owed to the fact that the absence of the water content provides no conducting medium of the current flow. It may be then considered to be similar to an insulator. When the soil is watered until it is fully wet it then begins to conduct current like a metallic conductor. In the intermediate stages i.e., as the soil moisture increases from 0% to 100% the soil voltage increases from minimum to maximum.
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The circuit basically consists of a step down center tap transformer that reduces the 230V supply from the mains to 12V peak-to-peak voltage. This is then fed to a bridge rectifier that converts this 12V peak-to-peak AC voltage to 12V DC voltage. The output of the bridge rectifier for obvious reasons have very high ripple factor. Thus in order to decrease the ripple the rectifier IC is used. This circuit now provides an output voltage of 12V DC. This is used as the Vcc or the biasing voltage for the next part of the circuit comprising of the DARLINGTON CIRCUIT. In some instances the need arises for an amplifier with high input impedance. To achieve larger input, here the two transistors form a composite pair, the input resistance of the second transistor constituting the emitter for the first. More specifically, the Darlington circuit consists of two cascaded emitter followers with infinite emitter resistance in the first stage. The output range of the Darlington circuit is proportional to the input range. In order to use this voltage, it reduces to a more appropriate range by employing a signal conditioning circuit. This circuit is designed to have a suitable gain to adjust the voltage range. The output of this circuit is then passed through a voltage follower to nullify the loading effects. The voltage available at the end of the voltage follower is the value that is actually proportional to the soil voltage. This is then fed to a buzzer of a predetermined specifications stimulus to the input response. In other words the buzzer is set off when the input voltage to it is high which happens in case of the dry soil. This gives the birds eye view of the circuit for the indication of the wetness or dryness of the soil.
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Some of the major components that are used in this project are listed below: o Step down transformero Diodes o Capacitance o Regulators o Transistors o Resistors o OP-AMP o Buzzer o Metallic Probes 12-0-12 V IN4001 1000F IC LM7812, LM7912 BC 148 1K, 2K, Potentiometer A 741
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As it was explained earlier this circuit begins with a step down transformer. Since the operating voltage of this device is just 12V DC as compared to the 230V AC from the mains, there arises a need for stepping down this supply voltage to the operating voltage. Thus a 12-0-12 step down transformer is used. Also the operating voltage is a constant voltage unlike the alternating voltage of the mains. For this purpose the bridge rectifier is employed that converts the alternating voltage from the mains to the DC voltage. This DC voltage is unstable as against the requirements of the experiment. This is accomplished by the capacitor that effectively removes the ripple in the DC and the regulator ICs. All these constitute the power supply block. The next block is of the sensing element that is the unit that measures the soil voltage. This block contains a DARLINGTON CIRCUIT which is shown in the figure.
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In some instances the need arises for an amplifier with high input impedance. To achieve larger input, here the two transistors form a composite pair, the input resistance of the second transistor constituting the emitter for the first. Most specifically, the DARLINGTON circuit consists of two cascaded emitter followers with infinite emitter resistance in the first stage as shown in the figure below. In case the soil is dry as explained earlier as quiet as enormous resistance. Thus, this acts as the high input impedance to the DARLINGTON circuit. Then the output of this circuit also known as the common emitter amplifier is given by the equation Vo = Av X Vi Where Vi is the input voltage, i.e., the soil voltage. Vo is the output voltage of the circuit. Av is the gain of the circuit. As it can be seen from the circuit diagram, this DARLINGTON circuit also has a variable resistance potentiometer. This is varied in order to obtain the proper value of the current that is flowing. This output, which is the proportional value of the soil voltage, is in a form that cannot be used directly for the display purposes. Thus it is then fed to a signal conditioning circuit that basically consists of an operational amplifier that has been rigged up as an inverting amplifier with a specified gain. The gain is so chosen that the output range of the OP-AMP inverting amplifier is compatible with display devices that are going to be used for example 0-5V or 0-10V etc. In this experiment the inverting amplifier has been designed that provide an output in the range of 0-5V DC, the 0V corresponding to the wet soil voltage and 5V corresponding to the dry soil voltage. This circuit has been designed by suitably choosing the values of R and RF in order to adjust the gain.
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The gain of a inverting amplifier is given by Gain = ( R / RF ) In this case considering the voltage range of the buzzer the gain has been chosen to be half () i.e., R = 1K RF = 2 K
The figure shows the inverting amplifier. This is followed by a voltage follower which is nothing but a simple approach to avoid the loading of the previous stage. The circuit of a voltage follower is very similar to that of the inverting amplifier except that the voltage gain in the voltage follower is unity (1). Thus here though the voltage remains the same the current gets amplified. This is important in order to drive the buzzer. Finally the voltage follower feeds its output to the buzzer. When the soil is wet its resistance being very less offers a very low voltage drop. In ideal conditions this voltage drop may be completely neglected. Thus the emitter of the two transistors in the DARLINGTON circuit get short giving a zero (0) output. Thus the current flowing into the buzzer is very less, thus the buzzer remains OFF. Whereas under practical considerations, due to the impurities present in the water in the soil its a finite but a very
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less resistance. This may lead to as small amount of current flowing into the buzzer giving a feeble sound. This is though a limitation gets masked by the other major advantages of the device. When the soil is kept dry as discussed earlier the soil voltage is high owing to the high soil resistance. When this high resistance is introduced across the probes of the device it brings into the picture the high input impedance or the biasing impedance to the DARLINTON pair of transistors. Here one of the major factors that need to be considered is the range of the soil voltage from the dry soil to the wet soil. This range has to be converted to another range so that it can be further used for buzzer or any other indicating devices such as L.E.D etc. The signal conditioning circuit is used mainly for this purpose. Also the DARLINGTON circuit is a high gain circuit. Thus the loading problems may be frequently encountered. In order to overcome this short coming too, the signal conditioning circuit consisting of the voltage follower circuit is used.
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TRANSFORMER: A transformer is a static electrical device, which transfers electrical power from one electrical circuit to another, which is magnetically coupled together with or without change of voltage and without any change in power and frequency. The basic use of a transformer is to increase or decrease voltage. If it is used to decrease the voltage then its called a step down transformer, if it is used to increase the voltage then it is called a step up transformer, if the voltage is not changed then it is called 1 to 1 transformer. The efficiency of a transformer is very high of the order 95% to 98%. A transformer consists of mainly two parts windings and the core. There are two windings that are wound on the two limbs of the core, which are insulated from each other and the limbs. A single phase transformer works on the principle of mutual inductance between two magnetic coupled coils. When the primary winding is connected to an alternating voltage of RMS value V1 volts, an alternating current flows though through the primary winding and sets up an alternating flux, in the material of the core. This alternating flux links not only the primary windings but also the secondary windings. Therefore an EMF E1 is induced in the primary winding and an EMF E2 is induced in the secondary winding. SPECIFICATIONS: o 12-0-12 step down transformer o Center tap DIODE: It is a P-N junction two lead component with non-ohmic characteristics. It is used in forward and reverse bias conditions. There are different kinds of diodes depending upon the manufacturing company, P-N characteristics, doping properties, semiconductor material, doping material and many other factors. Thus depending on the circumstance the particular diode is used. A diode always offers low resistance when it is forward biased and offers very high resistance when it is reverse biased.
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When diodes are used in a circuit, the voltages and currents flowing through them should be such that, the devices remain safe. The diode used in the bridge rectifier circuit in this experiment is IN4001 SPECIFICATIONS: o Forward voltage o Power dissipation o Forward current o Peak inverse voltage TRANSISTORS: Transistor is a two junction three lead component. These leads are emitter, base and collector. A transistor is a semiconductor device in which current flows through semiconductor materials. In a bipolar junction transistor the term bipolar is used as two type of charge carriers, holes and electrons are involved in current flow. When a thin layer of P-type or N-type semiconductor is sandwiched between a pair of opposite types, the result is a transistor. There are two types of transistors o PNP transistor o NPN transistor In a PNP transistor a thin layer of N type semiconductor is placed between two P type semiconductors. In a NPN transistor a thin layer of P type semiconductor is placed between two N type semiconductors. The transistor BC 148 is used in the experiment is NPN type transistors. REGULATORS:
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Ideally the purpose of the power supply regulator is to provide a predetermined output DC voltage Vo which is independent of the load current IL drawn from Vo, of the temperature and of any variations in the AC line voltage. The regulator that is used in the experiment is of 3 terminals type and it is available in several output voltages. The voltages available allow these regulators to be used in wide range of applications such as logic systems, instrumentation, and other solid state electronic equipments. The regulators used in the experiment are LM7812 and LM7912. OPERATIONAL AMPLIFIER: The operational amplifier (abbreviated as OP-AMP) is a direct coupled high gain amplifier to which a feed back is added to control its overall response characteristics. It is used to perform a number of linear as well as non-linear operations. Many of the analog systems constructed with help of the Op-Amp constitute the basic building blocks. These ICs augmented by a few external discrete components, either singly or in combination, are used in a number of systems such as: amplifiers of different types, voltage followers, active filters, analog multipliers, sample-and-hold circuits, comparators, square and triangular wave form generators. The Op-Amp used is this experiment is A 741. the pin details and other specifications are given at the end.
This is one of the simplest ways of detecting the soil moisture. This instrument can be made automatic which then becomes a self-sufficient soil moisture controller. In other
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words when a motor is attached via a relay to the output of the circuit, then the motor is turned ON whenever the soil is detected as dry. The enhancement of this equipment is that, instead of connecting the output to a buzzer, it is connected to an Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) which converts the corresponding voltage into digital signals which is then connected to a microcontroller and the voltages or the moisture content level is indicated through an LCD. As compared to the other currently available soil moisture indicators such as the microwave soil moisture detectors, the remote sensing soil moisture indicators. This circuit is one of the simplest one. Also the working of the circuit is easily understandable. The major applications of soil moisture indicator is Used in detecting the moisture content in the soil in agriculture. Used in the field of Bioremediation for accurate soil moisture monitoring. Used in waste water reclamation. Used for forecasting landslides in high mountain regions. It can thus be concluded as, this is one of the most versatile device with some of the important properties, which is also the advantages of the device is Simple circuitry No handling complications Portable Can be easily made automatic Easily perceivable output such as beeper or L.E.D The only disadvantage is that of the feeble sound produced by the buzzer.
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1. EARTH SCIENCE BY ORDWAY. 2. FUNDAMENTALS OF SOIL SCIENCE BY FOTH AND TURK 3. INTEGRATED ELECTRONICS BY MILMAN AND HALKIAS. 4. ELECTRONICS FOR YOU. 5. WEBSITES: www.google.com and www.alldatasheets.com
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