The prototype uses soil moisture sensors which, through a measurement of dielectric permittivity, estimate the soil moisture based on which irrigation is started through relay-controlled solenoid valve. The system was developed using Open Source technologies. Specifically, for the hardware components, a small sized board computer Raspberry PI 3B + was used together with a 4G LTE Wi-Fi router and a Modbus rs485 / USB converter.
The data storage and management system are based on a NOSQL-type Elastic stack and a Grafana-based dashboard. Specific Python scripts have been developed for the acquisition of data from the probes and for the activation of the solenoid valve. The system thus composed can be used to remotely manage any sensor / probe that does not have proprietary hardware and software technologies.
The innovative features are given using Open Source technologies for the acquisition and data management in precision irrigation. The system is advantageous as it is relatively inexpensive compared to commercial solutions and because it is not subject to the vendor lock-in. In addition, the modular system is easily adaptable to various application fields.