The collaboration between smart circuit breakers and soil moisture sensors brings unprecedented intelligent upgrades to agricultural irrigation systems.
1. Data Collection: First, the soil moisture sensor is installed in the field, with its probes in contact with the soil. The sensor uses forked probes as a variable resistor, adjusting its resistance value according to the moisture content in the soil. The more moisture in the soil, the lower the resistance; the less moisture, the higher the resistance. The sensor converts this change into an analog voltage signal.
2. Signal Transmission: The analog voltage signal is sent through the sensor to the control unit of the smart circuit breaker to determine the specific value of soil moisture.
3. Intelligent Decision Making: The smart circuit breaker has a built-in microprocessor or a connected control system that receives data from the sensor. This system is pre-programmed with logical judgment rules, such as setting a threshold for soil moisture. When the soil moisture falls below this threshold, the system determines that irrigation is needed.
4. Controlling Irrigation Equipment: Once it is decided that irrigation is needed, the smart circuit breaker activates the control circuit. It may directly control a relay connected to the power supply of the irrigation system, thereby opening the water source. The control logic of the smart circuit breaker ensures that irrigation is only activated when necessary, avoiding waste of water resources.
5. Communication and Remote Monitoring: Modern smart circuit breakers typically have communication interfaces like Wi-Fi or LoRa, allowing soil moisture data and irrigation status to be uploaded to a cloud platform or IoT system. This way, farm managers can remotely monitor soil moisture and irrigation activities via mobile phones or computers, and even manually intervene in control strategies.
6. Automation and Optimization: Through long-term data collection and analysis, the smart circuit breaker system can learn the best irrigation patterns, automatically adjusting irrigation plans based on weather forecasts, historical data, and crop needs, further improving the efficiency of water resource use.
The collaboration between smart circuit breakers and soil moisture sensors enables real-time monitoring, intelligent processing and decision-making of data, and direct control of the irrigation system, forming a closed-loop automated management system that effectively enhances the intelligence level of agricultural irrigation.