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Southern Region Engineering Conference
11-12 November 2010, Toowoomba, Australia
Automation and Control in Surface Irrigation
Systems: Current Status and Expected Future Trends
Richard Koech*, Rod Smith and Malcolm Gillies
CRC Cotton Catchment Communities and National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture
University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba
Toowoomba, Australia
*Corresponding and presenting author, koech@usq.edu.au
Abstract—Surface irrigation systems are the most popular
methods for irrigating crops and pastures not only in Australia
but the world over. However, these systems are often labour
intensive and exhibit low water use efficiency. Rising labour costs
especially in the developed world and competition for scarce water
resources have generated renewed interest in the automation of
surface irrigation systems.
This paper provides a comprehensive review of the current level
of automation and control of surface irrigation systems. The
automation techniques discussed utilise various devices including
mechanical, electronic, pneumatic and hydraulic means. The use
of telemetry is also discussed. With the almost universal access to
high performance computers and fast internet, the concept of
real-time control in surface irrigation is not far-fetched. Towards
this end, an on-going research project at USQ aimed at
modernising furrow irrigation by use of automatic control
systems in real time is discussed.
Keywords- Automation, real-time control, surface irrigation
I. INTRODUCTION
Surface irrigation (furrow, basin and bay) is a method of
irrigation in which water is conveyed on the surface across
field by gravity flow while at the same time infiltrating into the
soil. Surface systems are the most common in Australia and
much of the world. In 2008-09, surface irrigation accounted for
63% of the total irrigated land in Australia, the majority of
which is located in the Murray-Darling Basin (ABS 2010).
In furrow irrigation, one of the oldest known techniques of
surface irrigation, water is conveyed through small channels
with a gentle slope towards the downstream end. The spacing
of these channels generally correspond to the spacing of the
crop to be established. This method is popular for the irrigation
of row crops. As opposed to furrows, basins are designed to be
level in all directions and can be square or rectangular in shape.
Earthen banks are constructed around the basin leaving a notch
for water inlet. The system has traditionally been used to grow
rice. Bays are similar to basins, but have a slight slope and free
draining conditions at the downstream end. Bay irrigation is the
preferred method for the irrigation of pastures in southern
Australia.
Surface systems are simple, have low energy consumption
and require comparatively low initial capital. However, they
are often associated with a high labour requirement and low
water use efficiency (e.g. Smith et al. 2005). Rising labour
costs, the competition for water and the need to conserve the
environment has intensified the move to more advanced
systems. Automation is one means of ameliorating the
problems of high labour requirement and low water use
efficiency of surface systems. But the spatial and temporal
variability of the soil infiltration characteristics means that each
irrigation behaves differently and are therefore difficult to
standardise and automate (Walker 1989).
Apart from on-farm automation, many irrigation areas
especially in the southern part of Australia have or are
developing automated water delivery systems. The integration
of on-farm and channel control technologies will become a real
possibility in the near future. Some of these developments in
the irrigation industry have benefited from the Australian
Federal and State governments’ financing with a precondition
that the water saved be surrendered back to the environment
(Plusquellec 2009).
The purpose of this paper is to review the current status of
automation of surface irrigation in Australia. An on-going
research project at USQ aimed at modernising furrow
irrigation through automation and use of adaptive real-time
control is also described.
II. AUTOMATION AND CONTROL IN SURFACE IRRIGATION
SYSTEMS
A. Equipment
A number of surface irrigation automation and control
devices are available in Australia, the majority of which are
manufactured locally. These range from gates that are
commonly used to control the flow of water to an irrigation bay
or basin, to water sensors, and to telemetry and supervisory
control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. The most
commonly used systems are described below.
Gates and flow metering: Gates are structures placed in an
irrigation channel or bay/basin outlet to control the flow of
water. The control of these devices may be achieved by a
mechanical timer or electric solenoid. In Australia, existing
manually controlled gates are being automated (Mareels et al.
2005). Commercially available gates widely used in the
Australian irrigation industry and their mode of actuation are
summarised in Table 1.
Dethridge Wheels have traditionally been used in Australia
to measure the flow of water from the supply system onto the
Table 1: Commercially available channel/outlet gates
farm, but are increasingly being replaced by a variety of
modern ultrasonic and electromagnetic meters (Smith and
Nayar 2008).
Advance sensors: Irrigators often use their intuition and
experiences to determine the time to cut-off water flow into an
irrigation bay/ basin or furrow. In bay irrigation for instance,
the inflow is commonly cut-off when the water front reaches
two thirds of the distance down the bay (Dassanayake et al.
2009).
Sensors that are now routinely used in surface irrigation in
Australia include IrrimateTM water sensors, Padman radio bay
sensors and Padman pneumatic bay sensors. IrrimateTM
advance sensors, commonly used in the evaluation of furrow
irrigation, are placed at various points along the length of the
field and are triggered by the advancing water front. The
advance times are downloaded to a hand-held computer after
the irrigation event. Padman radio bay sensors are placed at
predetermined point along the irrigation bay. They are
triggered by the advancing water and the signal is sent via radio
links to the bay gate to cut-off the inflow. Pneumatic bay
sensors are connected to the automatic gates by air-filled pipes.
When the advancing water enters the sensor the air inside the
pipe is pressurised thereby activating the opening and closing
of the automatic gates (Armstrong 2008). A remote sensing
vision system comprising a camera placed at the field boundary
is described by Lam et al. (2007). There is however no
evidence that such a system has been used at a commercial
scale.
Telemetry systems: Telemetry systems are vital
components of automatic surface irrigation methods. They
allow measurement of various parameters from a remote
location and the results are conveyed to a central location via
wireless means such as radio, telephone, infrared, satellite and
internet. The telemetry technology commonly used in
automated surface irrigation systems is the SCADA system
(Smith and Nayar 2008; Armstrong 2009). The AWMA
Aquator system (mainly used to control bay/basin outlets), and
Rubicon’s Total Channel Control (used to control channel
flow), both use SCADA platform and allow remote control of
these devices.
B. Bay and basin Irrigation
Typical bay and basin systems have head ditches at one
edge of the field which are fed from open channels. Initial
attempts to automate these systems appear to have focussed on
controlling the inlets or gates that supply water to the field.
Gates with a single function (either open to admit water or shut
off the flow) are described in Humpherys (1995a) while dual
function gates (open and close) are detailed in Humpherys
(1995b). The control of these devices may be achieved by a
mechanical timer or electric solenoid, that is, they are time-
based open-loop systems (Humpherys 1995c). However, the
two types of gates require resetting prior to the next irrigation
event. A time-based control basin system using off-the-shelf
sprinkler controller to control the gate is described in Niblack
and Sanchez (2008).
AWMA Pty Ltd., a company based in Australia has
developed the ‘Aquator’ system which combines the
technology of radio telemetry, solar power and personal
computers to automate and control bay and basin outlets
(AWMA 2009). Aquator uses the SCADA platform and the
software is installed in a personal computer stationed in a
house or office (base station). The operation commands from
the base station are sent out to the outlets to be controlled
through a base transmitter connected to the computer and
aerial installed on the roof. The outlets to be controlled have
radio receivers, control electronics and aerials, and are mostly
solar-powered.
The time to cut off flow in time-based control systems is
mainly based on the irrigator’s experience and intuition. But
the spatial and temporal variability of soil infiltration
characteristics (Smith et. al. 2009; Gillies 2008; Walker 1989;
Emilio et al. 1997) means that the advance time will also be
variable from one part of the field to the next and from one
irrigation to the next (Humpherys and Fisher 1995). The
essence of feedback control is to give a better estimate of the
advance time (and therefore the most appropriate time to cut
off) through the measurement of the advance rate with the
ultimate aim of improving water use efficiency.
Feedback control in automated bay and basin irrigation
systems typically involves the use of sensors placed near the
downstream end of the field (for example Clemmens 1992,
Niblack and Sanchez 2008, and Humpherys and Fisher 1995).
The sensors are triggered by the advancing water front to send
a signal by telemetry to the gates to cut off the flow (Niblack
and Sanchez 2008, and Humpherys and Fisher 1995).
Feedback from sensors can also be used to continually adjust
the flow rate (Clemmens 1992).
C. Furrow Irrigation
In furrow irrigation, small channels or furrows spaced
according to the row spacing of the crop to be established
(typically about 1 m) are used to convey irrigation water from
the inlet to the downstream end of the field. The water is
supplied from a head ditch or gated pipe that runs along one
edge of the field. Overbank siphons, pipes through the bank
(PTBs) and bankless channels are all different means used to
Gate
Manufacturer
Features
Mode of control
Rubicon SlipGate
Rubicon Systems
Australia
Can measure flow when
fitted with sensors
Electromechanical actuators
FlumeGateTM
Rubicon Systems
Australia
Control and measure flow
Electromechanical actuators
Padman stop
Padman Stops
Rubber set in concrete
structure
Mechanical timer
Water control
gates (various)
AWMA Pty Ltd.
Actuation systems are
custom made
Manual, electromechanical,
hydraulic or pneumatic actuators
transfer water from the head ditch into the furrows, with the
former being the most predominant. A PTB is typically about
300 mm internal diameter buried underneath the bank facing
the field to be irrigated and delivers water to a group of
furrows. Bankless channel systems are relatively new to
Australia (Grabham et al. 2008), and as the name suggests, the
head ditch in this case has no bank on the field side. The
paddock is subdivided into separate bays which may be level
or with a small slope upwards away from the channel. Gates
installed in the channel are used to block the water forcing it
to flow into each bay in turn. Notched lined head ditches, very
rarely used in Australia, have been used to supply water to
furrows in the US (Humpherys 1969).
Distributing water uniformly into individual furrows
without the use of expensive structures and devices presents a
major challenge in the automation of furrow irrigation
(Humpherys 1969). For this reason, furrow systems have seen
very little mechanisation and automatic control as compared to
other surface irrigation techniques. Previous efforts at
automation of furrow system include surge flow (Walker
1989; Lier et al. 1999; Humpherys 1989; Mostafadeh-Fard
2006), automatic cutback (Humpherys 1969) and cablegation
(Kemper et al. 1987). Furrow systems involving the use of
microcomputer and telemetry are described in Hibbs et al.
(1992) and Lam et al. (2006).
Hibbs et al. (1992) developed a furrow irrigation
automation system utilising an adaptive control algorithm
(FAAC) in which water is delivered to a block of furrows and
the outflow was monitored using a flume and a depth sensor
installed at the downstream end of the furrow. The infiltration
characteristics were analysed by a microcomputer and the
inflow is adjusted accordingly by using an automatic valve.
The inflow system employs an adjustable pressure regulator
and a diaphragm valve to supply equal inflow rates among a
block of furrows. However, outflow is only monitored from
selected representative furrows. While it might be infeasible to
monitor outflow from each furrow, errors will inevitably be
introduced into the system because of spatial variability of the
infiltration characteristics across the field. Application
efficiencies of the FAAC irrigations were found to be higher
than those of conventional systems (Hibbs et al. 1992).
However, the system is based on the outflow hydrograph, and
it is not always practical to obtain accurate measurements of
outflow using a flume.
Surge flow irrigation is achieved by intermittent
application of water to furrows, as opposed to the
conventional continuous flow. Two commercially available
surge flow irrigation systems are described by Walker (1989).
The ‘dual line’ system commonly used by irrigators who
already have gated pipe system in place, uses an automated
surge flow valve to switch the flow between the two sides of
the pipe system. In the ‘single line’ system, each outlet of the
gated pipe is fitted with a valve. These valves are grouped into
a suitable number and controlled from a central location to
achieve a surge flow pattern. Mostafadeh-Fard (2006)
designed an automatic surge flow irrigation system using
wireless, cheap programmable surge valves installed in a gated
pipe and use solar-powered batteries. The control mechanism
consisted of an electronic board, motor and gear, and solar
battery. Notwithstanding the merits of the surge system, the
method is generally seen as complex and the cost of
implementation may be too high. The use of rigid gated pipes
in surge flow systems is also unlikely to endear to many
irrigators because of transportation difficulty.
Cablegation is an automatic furrow irrigation technique
which uses a travelling plug inside a gated pipe system. Water
application is restricted to only those gates nearest to the
plugs, and the flow into any furrow gradually decreases as the
plug moves further downstream. Although cablegation has a
number of advantages including labour savings and potential
reduction in runoff, it was found to be unable to compensate
for the furrow-to-furrow variability in intake rate (Kemper et
al. 1987).
None of these designs has been widely adopted by
irrigators because of the initial cost and their perceived
complexities.
Automation of overbank siphons has so far proved
infeasible. An interesting fairly recent development is the use
of a motorised priming unit to start up large overbank siphons
(SPACEPAC 2010). The majority of the PTBs in use in the
cotton industry have a flap valve and an extended arm at the
inlet point in the head ditch side of the bank used to control
flow (Fig. 1). The opening and closing is often done manually,
but there is a great potential for automation. This was
demonstrated at a furrow irrigation automation trial site in the
Gwydir Valley (Fig. 2) whereby each PTB inlet mechanism
was automated allowing remote control using the ‘Aquator’
system (AWMA 2009).
III. IMPACT OF AUTOMATION AND CONTROL IN SURFACE
IRRIGATION SYSTEMS
A. Benefits
In automated surface irrigation systems, the irrigation
process takes place in the absence of the irrigator (or operator).
The excess labour as a result of automation can be re-deployed
elsewhere in the farm or simply dispensed with. The irrigator
will have more time to engage in other activities or relax. This
partly explains why the benefits of automation have
traditionally been seen as labour saving and lifestyle
improvement, especially from the point of view of the
irrigators.
The use of automatic structures and devices in irrigation
guarantees timely farm operations (such as opening and closing
of inlet bay structures) and eliminates (or at least reduces) the
element of human error. This leads to water savings, the
magnitude of which depends in part on the robustness of the
control strategy in place.
That the water saving aspect of automation is somehow
obscure is perhaps best illustrated by a survey undertaken by
Maskey et al. (2001). When asked about their perceptions of
the benefits of automation, the percentage of farmers who
considered labour saving and reduction of water usage as
having the greatest benefits were 59% and 19.3% respectively.
The potential increase of land value as a result of automation
was also widely recognised by the farmers.
Few researchers have attempted to quantify the benefits of
automation in irrigation projects. Lavis et al. (2007) estimated
water saving of 5 to 9% in the Shepparton Irrigation Region.
Initial results from a bay irrigation project using an intelligent
irrigation controller and wireless sensor network at Dookie,
Northern Victoria, suggest that an average water saving of 38%
can be realised (Dassanayake et al. 2009).
B. Level of Adoption
There is limited published data on the percentage of
irrigators who have adopted some form of irrigation
automation in Australia. However it is clear that the majority of
the automated systems are found in southern-eastern Australia
(New South Wales, Victoria) and particularly within the dairy
industry. Bay irrigation is the preferred method of irrigation in
these areas. Statistics from Murray Valley Irrigation Area
(Maskey et al. 2001) and Central Goulburn in Northern
Victoria (Armstrong 2008) indicate that 8% and 11% of dairy
farmers respectively were using some form of automation in
their farming practices.
C. Barriers
Walker and Skogerboe (1987) cited lack of interest by
potential manufacturers in investing in the design and
manufacture of automation infrastructure because of perceived
weak market. The low adoption of automation technologies
was thus attributed to the scarcity and therefore expense of
automation equipment. The survey of irrigators in the Murray
Valley Irrigation Area (Maskey et al. 2001) rated automation
equipment cost as the most important barrier to automation.
The irrigators also added other priorities in the farm and the
requirement of the farm re-design before automation as
important barriers to automation. More manufacturers are
expected to come onto the market as more irrigators adopt the
new technology. This will inevitably lead to lower retail prices.
D. Future Trends
The future will undoubtedly face more competition for the
already scarce water resources. Governments and
environmentalists will continue to advocate for a balance
between the exploitation of water resources and sustainable
environmental conservation. All water users, including
irrigators, will be required to be more accountable in their use
of the scarce resource. Farm labour will become scarce and
expensive. It is widely anticipated that some of the farms
presently under surface irrigation will eventually be converted
to the various forms of low-pressure systems, but nonetheless
surface irrigation will remain a dominant method for the
foreseeable future (for example Gillies 2008; Raine 2006). It is
likely that the current efforts to modernise and improve the
water use efficiencies of the surface systems will intensify in
the future.
Several factors work in favour of the surface systems, the
initial capital requirement perhaps being the most significant.
Most surface systems are gravity-fed with very limited piping.
The limited pumping involved means that the energy
requirements (and therefore the carbon foot print) are also low.
There is also the advantage of low maintenance cost involved
and the use of generally unskilled labour.
The conversion from surface to pressurised systems comes
with a heavy initial capital investment. This investment cannot
always be justified, as shown by a study of the dairy industry in
the Lower Murray-Darling Basin (Doyle et al. 2009). This
study concluded that adopting pressurised irrigation systems
will not improve the viability of most irrigated dairy farms as
the farmers need time to acquire a new set of skills. Wood and
Martin (2000) also advised against the broad adoption of
pressurised irrigation systems as the benefits were not
automatic. Pressurised systems also rely heavily on energy, the
price of which has been on a steady increase for several
decades. The possibility of energy prices increasing to the point
of rendering the pressurised systems unviable is not
impossible.
We take the view that the research and improvement of
surface systems will continue into the future. This will deliver
performance similar to the pressurised systems at a lesser cost.
But as with any new technology, automation and especially the
use of telemetry, will take some time before irrigators can
adopt in a broader scale.
IV. AUTOMATION AND REAL TIME CONTROL OF FURROW
IRRIGATION
An on-going project at the University of Southern
Queensland (USQ) aims to develop, prove and demonstrate an
automated furrow irrigation employing adaptive real-time
control. Hardware and software devices and systems will be
utilised to automatically divert the desired amount of water to
Figure 1. Manually operated PTB. Figure 2. Automated (PTBs) for furrow irrigation.
furrows to satisfy the water requirements of a growing crop.
Real-time adaptive control will be utilised, enabling the use of
data collected during the irrigation being managed to control
that particular irrigation to give optimum performance for the
current soil conditions. The proposed system is expected to
deliver irrigation performance similar to the pressurised
systems along with similar labour savings but at greatly
reduced capital and energy costs.
A. Conceptual design of a real-time control system for
furrow irrigation
The conceptual design of an automatic furrow irrigation
system using adaptive real-time control (Fig. 3) consists of the
water delivery system, a computer and a camera placed close to
the tail-end of the furrow. Water is delivered into individual
furrows using gated layflat fluming. The camera is interfaced
with a radio modem, enabling the images of the advancing
water (taken across furrows) to be sent to the computer by
wireless means. The computer then evaluates the infiltration
characteristics through a simulation process and determines the
optimum time to cut-off the inflow. The inflow into the set of
furrows is switched off using an automatic valve. The system
then commences irrigating the next set of furrows.
B. Model Description
A simulation model suitable for an automatic furrow
irrigation using adaptive real-time control must be able to
obtain reliable infiltration estimates in the shortest time
possible and use the results to optimise that particular irrigation
event. The basis for this type of system was proposed by Khatri
and Smith (2006) who hypothesised that the shape of the
infiltration characteristic for a particular field or soil is
relatively constant despite variations in the magnitudes of the
infiltration rate or depth of infiltration. The amount of data
required for the prediction of the soil infiltration characteristics
are reduced by scaling the infiltration parameters from an
infiltration curve of known shape (model infiltration curve) and
one advance point measurement in the furrow.
An appropriate infiltration equation such as the Kostiakov-
Lewis is used to estimate the infiltration characteristics:
ao
I k f
(1)
where I is the cumulative infiltration (m3/m), τ is the time (min)
from the commencement of infiltration, k (m3/mina/m) and a
(non-dimensional) are fitted parameters and fo (m3/min/m) is
the steady or final infiltration rate. A representative furrow in
the field is selected and evaluated over an irrigation event, and
the model infiltration curve is obtained using the Kostiakov-
Lewis equation.
In this method a scaling factor (F) is formulated for each
furrow or event from a re-arrangement of the volume balance
model (as used by Elliot and Walker (1982)):
r
txf
xkt
xAtQ
Fo
a
z
oyo
1
(2)
where Qo is the inflow rate for the corresponding furrow
(m3/min), Ao is the cross-sectional area of the flow at the
upstream end of the field (m2), t is the time (min) for the
advance to reach the distance x (m) for the corresponding
furrow, σy (dimensionless) is the surface storage shape factor,
and σz (dimensionless) is the sub-surface shape factor and is
defined as:
ra ara
z
11 11
(3)
where r is the exponent from the power curve advance function
x = p(t)r for the model furrow.
The scaling factor is then applied to the Kostiakov-Lewis
equation to obtain the scaled infiltration curves for the whole
field:
Camera
Computer
Flow
meter
Automatic
valve
Furrows
Layflat
Figure 3. Real-time control system layout for furrow irrigation
Inflow
()
a
so
I F k f
(4)
where Is is the scaled infiltration (m3/m), a, k, fo are the
infiltration parameters of the model furrow.
The scaled infiltration characteristics obtained from this
approach are then used in a simulation and optimisation
process to determine the time to cut-off the inflow.
Component software and data to be integrated within the
adaptive controller system include:
continuous inflow measurement through inference
from pressure measurements in the layflat fluming
using the Gpipe program based on Smith (1990),
pre-characterisation of the field by determining a
generic soil infiltration characteristic from detailed
measurements of single irrigation events,
real-time prediction of the infiltration parameters from
a single observation of the irrigation advance during
the irrigation event being controlled (Khatri and Smith
2006), and
simulation of the irrigation and optimisation to
determine the preferred time to cut off the inflow to the
field using the SISCO simulation engine (Gillies et al.
2010) and taking into account the current soil moisture
deficit and the variation in the infiltration characteristic
across the set of furrows.
V. CONCLUSIONS
Surface irrigation systems are the most popular for the
irrigation of row crops and pasture. In Australia these systems
are used on more than half of the total irrigated land. Compared
to the pressurised systems however, surface systems are more
labour intensive and often exhibit lower water use efficiencies.
The improvements of the surface systems through
automation began several decades ago. These improvements
appear to have been biased towards bay and basin systems and
initially focussed on on-farm flow control by use of gates. The
state of the art of the surface systems in the Australian
irrigation industry has been presented. Notable recent addition
is the use of telemetry such as the SCADA technology.
This paper has argued that the current development in the
surface systems will be sustained into the future, and that these
systems will continue to dominate for many years to come. The
wide range of automation equipment and software tools
commercially available in Australia has removed a major
barrier to adoption.
The on-going research project at USQ focuses on the
furrow system which is the preferred method for the irrigation
of cotton in Australia. The project aims to develop, prove and
demonstrate an automated furrow system employing adaptive
real-time control. The goal is to upgrade the performance of the
furrow system to be at par with the pressurised systems with
similar labour savings but at greatly reduced capital costs.
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