- The Raspberry-Pi does not offer a ‘stand-by’ mode. We will need to manually manage the board’s components and any running software to achieve the lowest power consumption when the Pi is idle or under use.
Software running on the Smart Irrigation Controller
We will be using ‘Lite’ OS on our Raspberry-Pi, with contains only the daemons & user processes necessary for the Smart Irrigation Controller to operate :
- Essential Raspbian daemons (like CRON).
-
Apache Web Server, to have the Web Interface up-and-running.
- Irrigation Control Script (Python-based)
- INCRON, which is a similar program to CRON but instead of running commands based on time, it triggers commands based on file/directory events. We will use it in the Smart Irrigation Controller to modify CRON jobs according to user preferences on the Web interface.
Handling Hardware Required by the Smart Irrigation Controller
The following components are required for the Smart Irrigation Controller to operate properly. These components will be turned on/off to conserver power, depending on the needs of the Smart Irrigation Controller :
- LoRa Transceiver OR GSM Module
- Any additional device connected to the GPIO interface for Irrigation control (i.e. flow meters, actuators…).
Disabling Raspberry-Pi On-Board Components
Some of the components present on the Raspberry-Pi are not necessary to the functioning of the Smart Irrigation Controller, and as such it is preferable to disable them. Raspbian-OS allows us to disable most of these components through software :
- On-Board HDMI Port
- On-Board USB Ports
- On-Board Wi-Fi Module
- On-Board Bluetooth Module
- On-Board CSI Camera Port
- On-Board DSI Display Port
- On-Board 4-Poles Stereo Output and Composite Video Port
- On-Board LEDs