Design of Ultra Low Cost Cell Phone Based Embedded System for Irrigation

This paper describes the development of ultra low cost cell phone based remote control application for induction motor-pump based irrigation in agriculture. Rural areas in many states of India are plagued by frequent power cuts and abnormal voltage conditions. The developed system ensures that water is distributed to field whenever normal conditions exist based on task specified. The task is initially specified through keyboard / SMS. A novel concept of number of miscalls in specified duration has been used to reduce the operational cost of the system to bare minimum. Information is exchanged in form of messages / miscalls between the system and the user cell phones. The system is based on AVR ATMega32 micro-controller and includes protection against single phasing, over-current, dry running and other desirable features. RTC DS1307 and DS18S20 are used for time and temperature measurement respectively. It is expected that system will relieve hardships of farmers relating water distribution to a great extent. Future possibilities have also been explored.