MQTT-Based IoT Irrigation System with Network Performance Analysis

Level of Education of Students Involved

Both Undergraduate/Graduate

Faculty Sponsor

Dr. Haydar Cukurtepe

College

College of Engineering (COE)

Discipline(s)

Computer Science

ORCID Identifier(s)

0000-0002-4670-4877

Presentation Type

Poster Presentation

Symposium Date

Spring 4-30-2026

Abstract

Smart irrigation with data collection is a well studied area; however, nearly all implementations assume stable connectivity, something that cannot be assumed in rural areas, which are a likely location for the large-scale use of these systems. Reliable irrigation is one of the most critical factors in plant growth, so incorrectly handling it can damage or kill crops. Although these IoT irrigation systems are well studied, few of these projects focus on how these systems perform when connectivity is not stable and the realistic agricultural deployments.

This study investigates how MQTT-based IoT irrigation systems handle network unreliability. We want to find the point where MQTT becomes too inconsistent to be useful due to varying network conditions. More specifically, this project examines if communication delays and failures reduce the dependability of sensor reporting and pump control enough to make the entire system infeasible.

Our system includes an ESP32 with a moisture sensor and pump and a Raspberry Pi running the frontend and the MQTT server. Key metrics we included are latency, packet loss, and the effect on irrigation response time. In depth testing includes message delivery reliability and the overall system behavior during these degraded or interrupted connectivity, and how effective MQTT’s QoS implementation is at combatting these network reliability issues.

This study will determine whether a MQTT-based implementation of irrigation control is feasible in networks with poor performance and reliability. It will also help identify network environments where MQTT does remain dependable enough for real world farm/agricultural applications.

Biographical Information about Author(s)

Having grown up in rural environments with poor internet connectivity and many farming problems, this research is intended to find ways through which automation in farming can be used to improve food production. We intend to test out how network unreliability can cause problems in advancements in irrigation automation which could serve as a guide to improve network protocols that work well even at low bandwidths.

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