OrtoMio system allows the intelligent management of any irrigation system. It is a expandable and low cost solar powered system, simply to install and program. OrtoMio allows that when and how to irrigate crops on monitoring of many environmental and physical issues regularly, independently and intelligently, related to our harvest. The system includes the possibility of having an on-site management system and/or a remote access with two options either by sending sms by a mobile phone or using a dedicated web portal. The current version of the project involves the implementation of four solenoid valves that can control the water flow in output from one or more branches of the irrigation system. Various parameters can be monitored with a distributed network composed by the following sensors:
• Tank water level sensor
• Capacitive sensor for the monitoring of rain presence
• Environmental temperature sensor
• Webcam for the visual inspection of the crops
• Wind intensity sensor
Sensors mentioned above belong to the basic version of the system. It is expected that the extended version can have a rain gauge that monitors the quantity of rainfall, a humidity distributed sensor and a module that allows wireless access to the platform. The whole system is self-powered with a 10W solar panel that charges, during its light exposure, a 12V battery that supplies the power to the system during the whole night. The elaboration unit of the system is a Raspberry Pi 2, which offers different services to the user according to its great variety of configuration and its high number of peripherals. The board configuration is made with a user friendly GUI on a Linux OS where user can control all the system. A Wireless USB Modem (WUM) connected to Raspberry board provides offer to the different remote control services. Furthermore, the WUM allows both to receive sms and to connect with the internet (for example to control the images coming from webcam). Moreover, on the www.makeorto.com website, the user can register its product for saving and analysing data coming from the sensors and images recorded by the webcam. Although, OrtoMio is a low-power low-energy system but we have also implemented an electronic control of device power consumption and control of the solar panel power adsorption, in order to let it work for long hours during the night. Advantages that presents this system are:
• Low cost sensors
• Modularity, which allows the independent development of various modules that compose the whole system maintaining the same features;
• Autonomous power supply, which avoids any electrical net connection by means of a solar panel.
Having all the above features used for the OrtoMio, this system can be considered as a new added feature in a home automation system.