Automation and telecontrol system using microcontrollers for irrigation management of potted crops with weighing lysimeters

Today, energy efficiency is the cornerstone for development in any engineering industry. More specifically in the Agro-engineering sector, the trend is to reduce water use in irrigation, because water is an increasingly scarce and its price is becoming increasingly high. As each type of plant is different and has specific needs and different energy consumption, we may not use the same irrigation process for all of them. Therefore, the objective of this work is the efficient management of the irrigation of any type of plant using a weighing lyisimeter designed with load cells, and the interpretation of the data collected from this device. The system consists of an external support that works like a balance or a weighing lysimeter on whose surface rest the plant. This triangular structure has three load cells at the ends whose function is to measure weight changes experienced by the plant along the entire irrigation process and a fourth cell for measuring the weight of lixiviated water. In order to collect accurate data of the weight of our plant, we have developed an electronic device capable of detecting and receiving the analog signals from the cells, which are sent to a controller that processes them through specific software developed for this task. After obtaining the data provided by our system, we can use them to determine the irrigation efficiency of our plantation and decide which changes or variations should be performed in the system in order to achieve optimum results.