Omkar Pathak

The Smart Water System project consists of a network of environment monitoring sensors inputting real-time data from the surrounding and activates the water system automatically based on a specific algorithm. Although the main aim of this project is to reduce wastage of water by building a next-generation autonomous system, it is also an effort to support existing programs for students involved in horticulture, water sustainability, and lowering their carbon footprint at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). With the support of the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP), I built an autonomous watering system for potted plants and garden beds. In that process, I studied a multitude of resistive and capacitive soil moisture sensors. Through periodic logging of soil moisture readings, I was able to observe the correlation between various types of sensors and the direct impact of cable length, orientation, depth of soil and exposure to air on the analog value of the sensor. As my research evolves, I plan to scale my project to save water over vast cultivated areas. I also intend to record and compare water usage over manually and automatically watered plants so that I can calculate the amount of water saved by my Smart Water System project.