Available files: Report and Matlab Simulink.

Water is a very important component required by plants for photosynthesis, good fruit yield, transportation of nutrients, growth, good fruit quality and for maintaining plant quality, raising and stabilizing agricultural yields. Plants obtain their water from the soil through their roots. The soil moisture content is however very variable and may not be sufficient to the plant since it is usually dependent on irregular, insufficient and uneven rainfall. Through irrigation, the soil moisture content can be improved. In this project, a smart irrigation system has been designed that monitors the soil moisture levels and automatically activates a water pump that pumps the water to the farm. This system is completely automatic in operation and has benefits such as cost savings due to less water consumption and use of a hybrid solar PV (photovoltaic) –grid powered system to power the pump. In this project report, the currently existing irrigation techniques as well as the classical irrigation methods have been discussed and their benefits and disadvantages discussed. Key among most of the existing devices is the high cost of irrigation due to the high electricity or diesel costs required to operate the water pump. Irrigation methods such as overhead irrigation waste a lot of water thus the high costs. The use of PV systems in irrigation have also been presented in this report both stand alone and grid connected systems. In the design of the smart irrigation system in this project therefore, a cost analysis has been done to compare the cost of using the PV based system to the cost of using grid based system and from this the payback period of the PV based system determined to be 9.14 years. A total of 17 batteries were also included in the system and were used to provide exclusive power to the DC motor of the water pump. Design calculations done in this project determined that the PV module requirement for our system is 15 panels which have a 330 W rated output power and 17 batteries with a rated current capacity of 200 AH. The PV panels require a total of 25.968 square meters of roof space while batteries require a storage space of 2.1301 square meters. Simulink software was used to simulate the PV, Battery State of Charge, Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) and the entire irrigation system and the models built together with results presented and discussed in this report. The device designed in this project therefore is of great significance to farmers, water and electrical utilities as there would be reduced consumption of water and grid electricity thus it introduces cost savings of around $ 44 349.49 annually. Make this purchase and get a sample complete engineering thesis report on this topic as well as Matlab Simulink file.