IOT Based Automatic Soil Moisture Monitoring and Irrigation System

Abstract

Agriculture plays a vital role in the economy, especially in developing countries where efficient water management is essential. Traditional irrigation methods often lead to excessive water usage, uneven distribution, and increased labor requirements. The IoT Based Automatic Soil Moisture Monitoring and Irrigation System aims to overcome these limitations by providing an intelligent and automated solution for irrigation control. The system continuously monitors soil moisture and controls a water pump via an IoT enabled microcontroller, logging data to a cloud platform and enabling remote monitoring and manual override through a mobile application. The methodology involves sensing soil moisture in real time, comparing it with a predefined threshold value, and automatically switching the irrigation pump ON or OFF. This closed loop system ensures optimal water usage, reduces human intervention, and enhances crop productivity. The proposed system is cost effective, energy efficient, and suitable for small scale as well as large scale agricultural applications.

Introduction

The text describes an IoT-based automatic soil moisture monitoring and irrigation system using ESP32 designed to improve water efficiency and reduce manual effort in agriculture.

It explains that traditional irrigation methods (manual checking or fixed schedules) are inefficient and often lead to water wastage or crop stress. The proposed system solves this by using real-time soil moisture sensing, edge computing, and automated pump control to irrigate only when needed.

At the core of the system is an ESP32 microcontroller, which reads soil moisture data from sensors, applies calibrated thresholds, and controls a water pump through a relay. The system also sends data to a cloud platform for real-time monitoring, historical analysis, and remote control via a mobile or web interface.

The literature review highlights that most IoT irrigation systems use microcontrollers like ESP32/ESP8266 with cloud platforms such as Firebase or Blynk. Key findings include:

• Low-cost sensors are common but may suffer from accuracy and durability issues
• Capacitive sensors are more reliable than resistive ones
• Wi-Fi is suitable for small systems, while GSM and LoRa are used for larger or remote deployments
• Threshold-based control is widely used due to simplicity, while advanced AI-based methods offer better optimization but are more complex
• Security, calibration, and connectivity reliability are major challenges

The system works as a closed-loop control system, where:

1. Sensors measure soil moisture
2. ESP32 processes and compares it with threshold values
3. Pump is turned on/off using a relay
4. Data is sent to the cloud for monitoring and control

The hardware includes ESP32, soil moisture sensors (FC-28 in prototype), relay modules, and a water pump, with power supplied through regulated sources or batteries. The software handles calibration, decision-making, telemetry, cloud communication (MQTT/HTTP), and fault tolerance with buffering and retry mechanisms.

The system also supports:

• Remote monitoring and control via mobile app
• Data logging and analytics
• Manual override and setpoint adjustment
• Over-the-air updates and secure authentication

Conclusion

Based on experimental data, it can be concluded that data transfer to the database did not experience problems. But there is an average delay of 2.28 seconds. Based on testing of 3 internet providers, the results of the speed of sending data to the firebase averaged no more than 4 seconds. The process of sending data is dependent on the speed of internet provider.

References

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Copyright

Copyright © 2026 Tejas Bhadwale, Chetan Aher, Omkar Vengurlekar, Deepak Maurya, Sandeep Lalji, Swapnil Jadhav. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.