Abstract:
Water pumps are widely used in agricultural fields. One of the most serious
problems that faces the process of irrigation is providing electrical power to
feed the pump. Because most of the agricultural fields are in rural areas and
the cost of the main electrical supply is high; solar powered pumps are used.
This research provides an intelligent irrigation system that uses photovoltaic
cells to feed the water pump through a designed inverter which provides high
output power compared with the ordinary inverters available in the local
markets and much lower financial cost.
The designed system consists of the solar cells that generate 9V DC feed the
designed inverter which convert it to 220V AC-50 Hz. The inverter is
designed using digital electronic components; 555 timer operates at its astable
operation mode to generate pulse signal, IRFBC30 MOSFET and a
transformer which steps up the 9V to 220V AC. The generated AC feeds the
pump through a relay. A microcontroller is connected to the relay through
darlington ULN2003 transistor. The microcontroller works as a supervisor of
the whole system that controls the ON/OFF and the overall operation of the
system.
