AutomatedWateringSystem)in) Greenhouse) · The goal of my project is to build a watering system at ... I decided to make the irrigation system fully automatic ... system to make sure

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Automated  Watering  System  in  Greenhouse  

ECE  497  

Qianyue  Guo  

Course  Instructor:  Professor  Traver  

Project  Supervisor:  Professor  Hedrick    

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Abstract

The goal of my project is to build a watering system at Schenectady ARC Maple

Ridge Center. Their current watering system is very simple and time-consuming. The

project I am building is consisted of a rainwater collection system and a fully

automated irrigation system, which would save a great amount of time for the

individuals and supervisors there and would also save their city water usage. To test

the system, first of all I will take the data of the precipitation and calculate if

rainwater is substantial for the water usage in the greenhouse. What’s more, I will

build a small prototype of the greenhouse and grow some plants in it. Given the

features of each kind of plant and the time period they need to grow, I will implement

different kinds of irrigation systems controlled separately so that if any of the

controlling algorithms did not work, the plants will not die at once.

Table of Contents

Abstract 2

Table of Contents 2

Table of Figures and Tables 3

Introduction 4

Problem Definition 7

Design Requirements 9

Testing Plan 13

Project Schedule 14

Conclusion 15

Table  1.  Table  of  Contents

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Table of figures and tables

Table 1. Table of Contents 2

Table 2. Table of Figures and Tables 3

Table 3. Local Precipitation from May to October 2010-2014 12

Table 4. Requirements for the project 13

Figure 1. Current Watering Hose with Two Y-Connected Nozzles 4

Figure 2. Existing Rainwater Collection System 6

Figure 3. One of the Drains on the Flat rooftop at Maple Ridge 7

Figure 4. An Example of a Controller on the Market 8

Figure 5. Block Diagram of the Structure of the Project 9

Figure 6. Inverted Roof 10

Figure 7. Structure of Rooftops at Maple Ridge 11

Figure 8. Ideal Retractable Roof at Maple Ridge 11

Table  5.  Table  of  Figures  and  Tables  

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Introduction

My design will be consisted of two parts. The first part is the water collecting

system. It essentially collects rainwater to use for the irrigation system so that it could

save the expense on city water usage. The second part is the automated irrigation

system, which is the main part of the project. Their current watering system is

extremely simple and time-consuming. It is basically a hose with two water nozzles as

shown in Figure 1

Figure  9.  Current  Watering  Hose  with  Two  Y-­‐Connected  Nozzles  

Ideally the system I am going to build should be able to water the plants

accordingly in the green house on its own based on the types of the plants, the time of

the day, the season in the year, and etc. Since it is a CREATE project, it is very

important for me to take the accessibility of the project for the individuals into

consideration. In the beginning I was going to build an extra manual mode of the

irrigation system so that the individuals would be able to participate in the operation.

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However, the individuals vary a lot from each other and it is hard to define a certain

work for each and every one of them to be able to operate. After talking with the

contact from Maple Ridge, I decided to make the irrigation system fully automatic

since the main goal of this project is to save time for the individuals and the

supervisors so that they would be able to do other work in the greenhouse and this is

the only way the system could be beneficial to the most people.

As for the rainwater collection system, it would save up the city water usage for

Maple Ridge. Ideally the rainwater collection system would be able to collect all the

water needed for the greenhouse from May to October, which are the months

Schenectady normally do not encounter snowfalls. There is handful of existing

rainwater collection systems out there since it is relatively easy to build and it is quite

commonly used in a lot in domestic families.

Figure  10.  Existing  Rainwater  Collection  System

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However, the buildings at Maple Ridge have flat roofs. Also it is impossible to

get water out of the existing drain since the water goes straight down from the drain to

underground water. The pipes are in middle of the walls so there is no way to get the

water from the pipe. Therefore, I have to build my own roof above the existing roof in

order to collect water.

Figure  11.  One  of  the  Drains  on  the  Flat  rooftop  at  Maple  Ridge

For the automated irrigation system, there are irrigation controllers on the market

but they do have high price tags. Also I will be putting soil moisture sensors into use

so that the watering system would be able to tell when the plants were over-watered

or under-watered beyond daily schedule and would be able to make certain

accommodations on its own.

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Figure  12.  An  Example  of  a  Controller  on  the  Market  

Problem Definition

As said in the introduction, the design will be consisted of two parts. The first

part is the water collecting system. It essentially collects rainwater to use for the

irrigation system so that it could save the expense on city water usage. The second

part is the fully automated irrigation system, which is the main part of the project.

Ideally it should be able to water the plants accordingly in the green house on its own

based on the types of the plants, the time of the day, the season in the year, and etc.

There would also be soil moisture sensors implemented and will be part of the control

system to make sure the plants would not be over-watered or under-watered. The

main goal of this project is to save up the time for the individuals and the supervisors

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so that they would have more time to do other work in the greenhouse. The basic

structure of the project would look like the block diagram shown down below.

Figure  13.  Block  Diagram  of  the  Structure  of  the  Project

The inputs of this project would be the user, which are the individuals and

supervisors at Maple Ridge, the types of the plants, and the time of the day the plants

need to be watered. The outputs of this project would be the areas that need to be

watered, and the amount of water each area needs.

Since this is not a product that will be manufactured in quantity, all the cost will

be calculated once plus the water and electricity usage every month later on.

Rainwater  collected Controller

Sprinkler/Dripping  

head/Sprayer

Soil  Moisture  Sensor

Soil

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Design requirements

For the rain collecting system, as stated before in the introduction part, it is

impossible for me to get water out of the drain. And due to the fact that they have a

flat roof at Maple Ridge, I will have to build a roof in order to collect rainwater. There

are two solutions given the current circumstances. First of all I can build a inverted

roof shown below as Figure 6. The other solution is that I could build a retractable

canopy. As you can see in Figure 7, there are three levels of rooftops of the building. I

can build a retractable canopy as shown in Figure 8.

Figure  14.  Inverted  Roof

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Figure  15.  Structure  of  Rooftops  at  Maple  Ridge

Figure  16.  Ideal  Retractable  Roof  at  Maple  Ridge  

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Table  6.  Local  Precipitation  from  May  to  October  2010-­‐2014  

  Given   the   local   climate   of   the   Maple   Ridge,   it   is   important   to   make   the  

weather  into  consideration  when  it  comes  to  rainwater  collection.  We  snow  half  

of   the  time   in  a  year  here  and   in  summer  we  encounter  storms  and  hurricanes  

too.  So  ideally  the  roof  should  be  easy  to  build  and  taken  apart.  If   it   is  built  but  

not  able  to  be  taken  apart,  at  least  it  has  to  be  fixed  on  to  the  wall  or  the  rooftop  

so  that  it  will  keep  stable  when  it  comes  to  extreme  weathers  for  safety  reasons.      

  For  the  irrigation  system,  it  should  be  controlled  by  two  subsystems.  One  of  

them  runs  on  timer  controllers  on  a  daily  basis.  The  plants  will  all  be  breaking  

into  different  zones  based  on  the  frequency  and  the  amount  of  water  they  need  

to  be  watered.  Each  zone  will  have  different  watering  method,  either  sprinkler,  

sprayer,  dripping  head,  or  etc.  There  will  be  different  water  flows  imbedded  in  

the  soil  so  that  every  zone  can  work  on  their  own  without  affecting  one  another.    

The  other  subsystem  will  be  build  using  soil  moisture  sensors.  The  valves  will be

triggered when the sensors noticed that the plants are under-watered. On the other

hand, the system should be able to stop the scheduled watering when the moisture

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sensor sensed the plants are over-watered.

Considering all the circuits and control systems that are going to be placed and

operated in the greenhouse, it is crucial to keep them away from water. I will have to

do more research on that and figure out a certain way to do that.

It is important to keep in mind that the irrigation system is the main part of this

project. If the “roof” for the rainwater collection system is too hard to build or too

time-consuming, I might end up giving up that part of the project and focus on the

irrigation system since the water collection system is not much related to electrical

engineering and requires a lot of labor work.

System   Requirements  

Rainwater  Collection   Stainless  Steels  for  Building  the  Roof  

Gutter  

Downspouts  

Barrel  with  Lid  

Irrigation   Timer  Controller  (Model  TBD)  

Sprinkler,  Sprayer,  Dripping  Head  etc.  

Water  pipes  and  tubes    

Soil  Moisture  Sensors  

Arduino/Raspberry  Pi  

Wires  and  Other  Circuit  Essentials  

Table  7.  Requirements  for  the  project.  

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Testing plan

To test the system, first of all I will build a small prototype of the greenhouse

and grow some plants in it. I will take data of precipitation and calculate if rainwater

is substantial for the water usage in the greenhouse. From the data taken from the last

five years (shown in Table 3), I calculated the water that could be harvested from the

system is way more than needed.

Rain caught (gallons) = (inches of rain) x 0.6* x (portion of building footprint)

*One inch of rain falling on a square foot of surface yields approximately 0.6 gallons of

water.

In my case, half of the second level roof area was 15*50=750sqft. According

to Table 3, the month that Schenectady got the least rain was September of 2014. We

got 0.89-inch rain. So rain caught = 0.89*0.6*750=400.5gallons. Divide that by

30days we still got more than 10 gallons of water everyday. Based on what I have

heard from the contact from Maple Ridge, watering the whole greenhouse uses no

more than 3 gallons of water everyday. Therefore, even if there will be water loss in

the process of water harvesting, we still have a good amount of water to use. However,

these are all based on my calculation and inspection in the ideal circumstances. I will

be doing more calculation once I figure out a way to take data from the prototype that

is going to be built on campus.

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Also, given the features of each kind of plant and the time period they need

to grow, I will be implementing different kinds of irrigation systems controlled

separately so that if any of the controlling algorithms did not work, the plants will not

die at once.

When implementing the soil moisture sensors into the plants, I will also do

some testing beforehand. Since the people bring the plants to sell and to participate in

competitions, the plants are all in small little pots even if they are the same kind.

Therefore, before putting the moisture sensors into the soil, I will put them in in

different spots in the same zone. For instance, placing the sensors on the four corners

of each zone or in the center or maybe some other random shapes that will be

discussed later on when I am doing the project. Only when I do this can I get the data

and see if all the pots in the same zone have the same degree of moist and will not

cause situation where some pots in the zone are over-watered while others are

under-watered.

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Project schedule -

l Week 1&2: Talk to Supervisor. Get a More Detailed Plan on the Project.

l Week 3: Research Grant Application

l Week 4&5: Order Components After Getting Research Grant

Start Building the Prototype on Campus if Possible

l Week 6&7: Project Design Presentations

Timer Controller Coding

l Week 8&9: Complete the Design.

Soil Moisture Sensor Controller Coding

l Week 10: Preliminary Design Report

Conclusion

The goal of the watering system I am going to build for the Schenectady ARC

Maple Ridge Center is to improve the efficiency of their current watering system and

to save their city water usage. It will run on itself on a schedule on a daily basis but

also monitored by the soil moisture sensors that are going to be implemented. This

project is not only beneficial to the disabled individuals and the organization that

helps them, but also environmentally friendly. It is challenging but I will do my best

to accomplish it.

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Sources: https://www.oas.org/dsd/publications/Unit/oea59e/ch10.htm http://www.jenfoxbot.blogspot.com/2014/09/diy-soil-moisture-sensor.html http://www.usclimatedata.com/ http://www.seattle.gov/util/EnvironmentConservation/MyLawnGarden/Rain_Water_Harvesting/index.html