E LAB BANGLADESH LTD
Intern - Embedded Hardware Engineer Assignment
Deadline: 31st August 2021
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Fig: Basic Field Setup
Problem Statement: Farmers in the Northern area of Bangladesh suffer greatly from a lack of rain and
irrigation facilities. Currently, few farmers in a village own an irrigation system and most of the farmers
don’t have this facility. So, they are borrowing that system on an hourly basis which is not cost-effective.
To solve this problem E Lab comes up with an idea that will digitalize the whole irrigation system and will
make the whole process more transparent to the farmer.
The basic idea is to install one Irrigation system for multiple field blocks. Here, in the picture, each
Irrigation system (Which is a motor) will cover four surrounding blocks. All motors are wirelessly
connected to a central hub, where farmers can initiate irrigation for their block. Each block is the
representation of a separate farmer and they will have a smart card (RFID) to control the system. RFID
cards will hold some basic information of farmers account (eg. balance). Also, each block will have a
moisture sensor to sense the water level of each field.
Whenever a field is low in water level, the sensor will send a notification to the central hub. Again, the
central hub will send another notification SMS to the registered customer’s phone number of that field
block. Then the customer will come to the central hub and place his/her smart card in the controller. Now
the user needs to select the irrigation option and start the irrigation process. A prepaid balance will be
deducted automatically from the user’s card. The irrigation motor will run based on the option selected
by the user.
Based on the problem and solution idea, please answer the following,
Challenges:
1. Why this idea won’t work in the field? Please mention the top three reasons with little details.
2. To make it work, what are the improvements you can suggest? Please mention at least two.
3. Based on your improved version, design a system diagram of the controller and irrigation section
including wireless communication modules, power supply, sensors, microcontroller selection.
4. Make a flowchart/pseudo-code of each system mentioning user identification strategy, field block
selection strategy, communication strategy and Data security from Controller to Irrigation Motor
and vice versa communication.
5. If you can suggest a better solution idea for the whole system please proceed with that instead of
our idea and send us the answers of 1-4 and bonuses (optional).
Bonus Points:
1. Simulate the whole system in proteus or other relevant software. You can use alternatives for
wireless communication and Smart card(RFID). (eg. UART for communication and button for
Smart card)
2. Make a BOM of the project with the price and purchase list. Only include top-level components in
the BOM.
3. A video file containing one minute about yourself and two minutes about
explaining/demonstrating your assignment.
Notes:
1. Please make sure all the designs and other necessary documents are in PDF format. (One
single PDF)
2. Include the simulation and code files in a project folder (Bonus Points)
3. We will evaluate your effort and way of thinking too, so don’t hesitate to send incomplete
assignment files.
4. Finally, convert all the documents into zip format and send them to palal@[Link]
mentioning the post in the subject. For Video files, upload them in any cloud storage and send
the shareable link in the mail. For the simulation and code files, please mention software names
with the version in the mail.