Development of Integrated Crops Management System

Print the PCB layout on the OHP paper (Overhead projector)

The design of a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) layout of the system was printed on the OHP paper.

The picture of the PCB are shown below.

Figure: Printed mask on the OHP paper

Design a PCB layout of DICM system

Design a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) layout of the system is important to combine all the components that are used in one circuit. To design this PCB layout of this DICM system, the DipTrace software was used. In this software, the main component is the Atmega 328 which acts as the control center or the brain of the system was added first before starting to design the PCB of this system. After that, other components such as IR sensor, solenoid motor, DC gear motor, DC motor sprinkler, LCD and buzzer was added together to the main component which is Atmega 328. The design a PCB layout of DICM system is shown in the figure below.

By design this PCB layout, we know how to put or added the components and adjust the component and the tracks on the circuit board to make sure there are no contact with each other. This is important before we print the real PCB circuit and start with etching process.

Redesign schematic diagram of DICM system

Before this, I had shown the schematic diagram of this DICM system. But now, I will add some component to my DICM system which is Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). The function of LCD that was added to this system is to show if there are some notification to the user of this DICM system. For example of the notification if there are run out of fertilizer and pesticide on the system. This added component is useful to give the information to the user. The new schematic design of this DICM system is shown in the figure below.

By adding this LCD, it will give benefits to the user about their system.

Design circuit diagram of DICM system by using ISIS 7 Professional

Making the circuit diagram is important to know the combination of various components that are used in this DICM system by using ISIS 7 Professional software. This is first step before making the real or hardware of this DICM system. By using ISIS 7 Professional software, it is easy to design the circuit and the components that are used in this DICM system. The main components for this DICM system are IR sensor, Atmega 328, Solenoid motor, DC gear motor and buzzer. The design of this Dicm system is shown in the figure below.

By doing this this circuit diagram, we know the components that are used and the value of the components before interface with programming language.

Project sketching

Hardware and development contains on how the project or this DICM system looks like. It is important to design the suitable hardware for the project and the mechanical design is a part of this hardware development. Generally mechanical design is one of the major phases in the development of integrated crops management system. The skeleton of this system is designed and constructed in this phase. Few sketches have developed and one of the best had been chosen. The purpose of the skeleton is to provide a place to mount the electronics components and shows how this system moves on the rod of iron. Figure below shows the sketch design of DICM system.

Sensor pin selection

As we know the comparison between microprocessor and the pin mapping have explained before this, the selection types of pin is important to ensure that unexpected things happens during the construction of DICM system. In the Atmega 328 microprocessor, there have two types of pin which are analog or digital. The analog pin will detect at any types of voltage from 0-5V either 0V, 0.1V, 3.2V, 4.5V or 5V. The digital pin will detect fix value of voltage which are 0V or 5V only. Figure below shows the sensor information.

Figure: IR distance sensor

For IR distance sensor, the analog pin was chosen as input pin. Figure bellow will explain the distance of the sensor to detect an object in front of this sensor.

By using analog pin as a input, this analog pins can detect at any changes of voltage from 0V until 5V. For example if the distance between this sensor and the object is 2ms, the output voltage that has produce around 1.2V and another example when the distance is 1ms, the output voltage that was produce around 1.7V. This analog pin is suitable for this DICM system because this IR distance sensor can detect at any range of distance between the crops and sensor to give the fertilizer or pesticide to the crops.

Learn about Atmega 328 pin mapping

As we know, this Development of Integrated Crops Management System (DICM system) is using Atmega 328 as the microprocessor for this system. Why we choose this Atmega 328 as microprocessor in this DICM system compare to other microprocessor such as PIC16F873?. The comparison between Atmega 328 and PIC16F873 are shown in the table bellow.

Comparison between Atmega 328 and PIC16F873

Atmega 328 PIC16F873

* 28 pins * 28 pins

* 8 bit processor * 8 bit processor

* 10 bit ADC * 8 bit ADC

* Resolution * Resolution

: 5 / 2^{10 :}5 / 2⁸

: 4.88mV : 19.53mV

^{*From comparison between both microprocessor, Atmega 328 was chosen. It is because this microprocessor can detect any small range of changes with resolution 4.88mV. By using PIC16F873 microprocessor, it will detect at the changes around 19.53mV only compare with Atmega 328 which is 4.88mV. Figure bellow shows the Atmega 328 pin mapping.}

From the figure above, the Atmega 328 microprocessor have 28 pins, 5 volt and ground pins (basic), 6 analog pins and 14 digital pins. The selection of input and out pins will find out to make this DICM system.