Energy Saving Technology on Irrigation System for Rice Cropping

This paper presents a complete solution for the automated irrigation of rice crops using water level sensors, remote supervision and wireless communication. The main objective of the project is to monitor and control the level of water in the crop, which represents an important impact on energy efficiency and water consumption. Specific characteristics of rice cropping irrigation were taken into account, such as large distances involved and different working schemes of water pumps. The control of the crop conditions is done by a dedicated controller, which eliminates the need for a computer on site. Communication between the controller and the supervisory system is done through GPRS. The proposed system has been already implemented in a rice field in South Brazil. A detailed overview of the proposed automation system and a discussion of the preliminary results are presented in the paper.