Estación meteorológica inteligente para control de riego y mitigación de heladas

Abstract

In agriculture, water is vital for the crop. Knowing when to irrigate and how much to irrigate can be answered technically from data provided by weather stations. However, this data is not always available. In addition, although irrigation controllers are available on the market, they are not integrated with the stations and have a closed architecture. On the other hand, the development of electronics, the availability of affordable sensors, protocols, standards and open source, facilitate the integration of hardware and software components. This work proposes a prototype of an intelligent weather station that provides real-time data on temperature, ambient humidity, soil moisture, and rainfall, as input for a controller to activate irrigation in two cases: i) due to the need of water for crop development; or ii) to mitigate frost, supporting sustainable agricultural development with local, open source and affordable technology. The methodology was applied based on rapid prototyping, evaluating the operability of each electronic device and its integration in a controlled environment, and then in an experimental plot, at the Nero farm of the University of Cuenca. Open-source hardware and software were used for the development, using Arduino IDE and Visual Studio Code. A solar panel and batteries were used to power the system, optimizing consumption. This prototype has shown continuous and stable operation at 3100 meters over the sea level. It will continue to be monitored and improved, in order to make it available to the end user in the future.