Attention Makers

CATEGORY: ACCESSIBILITY

iFarm

MAKERS: Saiprasad , Abhishek COUNTRY: India

If the fields are watered at the correct time, a nation will never go hungry. A simple phone and an extra sim card are enough to ensure that.

The Purpose

The iFarm allows farmers to monitor field atmospheric conditions and operate irrigation pumps remotely. Timely watering of crops and allowing the farmer to monitor the atmospheric conditions will improve crop yields in India and this will, in turn, help the economy which is heavily based on agriculture. It is labor intensive and more than 60% of the population is engaged in it. WIth iFarm we intend to ease the burden of the farmers and make their lives easier. The project is designed to be cost effective for the Indian farmer and with sturdy but easily available components.

The Technology

The system uses a sim600 module(with a Sim card inserted) which is connected to the USART of the AVR microcontroller. The farmer simply has to send an SMS to the system. The SMS has a particular format. There are different formats for different functions. The code on the microcontroller can interpret all the messages and perform the required action such as controlling the pumps or giving weather data. The farmer can even program delays and the time span of irrigation. One sensor reports the water level in the reservoir. 2 Others report temperature and humidity. Microcontroller ADC samples the inputs.

Additional Details

The total cost of the project is Rs. 4000. If mass produced it will be much lesser and even more affordable. Many future improvements can be made to the project such as using the system in greenhouses where such systems are used to control the temperature, humidity, soil moisture. Maintaining optimum conditions depending on the crop will give the best yield. The farmer can remotely set the environment variables in such a system. Automation in the west has improved lives significantly. This project is a humble attempt to push Industry 4.0 in the Indian agricultural sector.

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