Received: 31 December 2017 Revised: 14 April 2019 Accepted: 21 May 2019 DOI: 10.1002/asjc.2220 SPECIAL ISSUE An Embedded Solar-Powered Irrigation System Based on a Cascaded Fuzzy Logic Controller Abdelouahed Selmani 1 Mohamed Outanoute 1 Hassan Oubehar 1 Abdelali Ed-Dahhak 2 Abdeslam Lachhab 2 Mohammed Guerbaoui 2 Benachir Bouchikhi 1 1 Sensors, Electronic & Instrumentation Team, Faculty of Sciences, Moulay Ismaïl University, Meknes, Morocco 2 Modelling Systems Control and Telecommunications Team, High School of Technology, Moulay Ismaïl University, Meknes, Morocco Correspondence Abdelouahed selmani, Sensors, Electronic & Instrumentation Team, Faculty of Sciences, Moulay Ismaïl University, Meknes, Morocco. Email: sel.bdel@gmail.com Present Address Sensors, Electronic & Instrumentation Team, Faculty of Sciences, Moulay Ismaïl University, B.P. 11201, Meknes, Morocco. Abstract This study examines the automatization of irrigation tasks of solar photovoltaic water pumping systems (SPVWPS) in greenhouse applications. A prototype of an embedded control system has been developed for SPVWPS battery-coupled architectures. The new design aims at improving the safety of solar irrigation facility by avoiding the exhaustion of pumping resources (water and energy) while watering. The availabilities of pumping resources are introduced as new requisite inputs of a fuzzy logic-based control system (FLC) so that it can pro- duce adequate and safe irrigation durations. The FLC design consists of two cascaded devices. The first device uses climate data to estimate durations for watering that satisfy crop needs. The second device uses actual resource levels to evaluate the pumping capacity of the SPVWPS regarding requested durations. Watering is performed whenever the pumping capacity of the system represents more than 25% of the total requirement. Test results from an experimental green- house prove the effectiveness of the decision-making mechanism that prevents scheduling unsuccessful watering tasks. KEYWORDS Embedded system, Fuzzy logic, Greenhouse, Java embedded, Raspberry Pi, Solar irrigation 1 INTRODUCTION Solar energy is one of the most popular renewable energy source that has less environmental impact than con- ventional sources while having low operating cost and long-life cycle. Recently, the introduction of this clean source in agricultural applications has increased rapidly in isolated and rural areas, where there is no access to the power line. For instance, SPVWPS is one of the most promising applications of solar power in the irrigation process. The technology is quite similar to any other con- ventional irrigation system and can be used wherever it is needed, thanks to the usage of solar energy as the power source. Several studies have been conducted on presenting the working technology, classification, and configuration of SPVWSs [1–5]. Despite the high initial set-up costs of the battery-coupled architecture, its feasibilities are better by guaranteeing continuous power supply even when climate conditions are unfavorable. In order to promote the use of SPVWS in greenhouses, several studies have focused on developing methods, tools, hardware and software components aiming at developing autonomous systems. Indeed, modern information tech- nology and artificial intelligence techniques have been put © 2019 Chinese Automatic Control Society and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/asjc 1941 Asian J Control. 2019;21:1941–1951.