PC- based pid nutrient mixing progress for fertigation system

Abstract

The practice of supplying crops in the field with fertilizers via the irrigation water is called fertigation. It is a modern agro-technique which provides an excellent opportunity to maximize yield and minimize environmental pollution by increasing fertilizer use efficiency, minimizing fertilizer application and increasing return on the fertilizer invested. In fertigation, timing, amounts and concentration of fertilizers applied are easily controlled. The nutrient requirement of crops is very much dependent on the biological stage of growth, varying from seeding to harvest. The goal of this project is to design, provide reliable and maintain a mixing process of fertilizer set A and set B at set point using PID controller. The precise proportional flow rate pump is used to inject both fertilizers set A and set B at predecided electrical conductivity (EC) value followed by plant nutrient uptake rate on a timebase irrigation system. Electrical resistivity of the mixing fertilizer liquid is to be considered as a proxy for the variability of nutrient properties. Validation of a model is determined by experiment. Therefore a prototype of fertigation system based on PC-based is built to collect and analyse the measurement data of EC. The result shows that the mixing process of fertilizers set A, set B and water using PID controller has been able to increase the efficiency of mixing fertilizer level according to the set point.