A systems engineering approach for precision irrigation

不断增长的人口和不利的气候变化正在加剧全球淡水短缺。由于灌溉消耗了很大一部分淡水，因此提高灌溉效率是很重要的。众所周知，如果灌溉者更有效地利用水，那么将有更多的水用于环境和城市。根据艾伯塔灌溉公司的说法，在艾伯塔省，即使只节省1%的灌溉用水，每年也可以节省约2300万立方米的水。**在提高灌溉用水效率的不同方法中，一个重要的方法是在灌溉控制系统中关闭回路，进行闭路灌溉。从系统工程的角度来看，目前灌溉(包括草坪灌溉和农业灌溉)的用水量主要是在开环条件下进行的。在闭合循环灌溉中，农田的供水量是根据实时的田间反馈信号确定的，这些信号包括测量的土壤水分含量、蒸散速率和其他在线传感器。初步研究表明，闭路运行**可以显著节约用水。在这个项目中，我们与InteliRain合作开发自适应闭环灌溉算法，以改进灌溉水管理，既可用于草坪灌溉，也可用于农业灌溉。预计该算法将显著提高灌溉用水效率，并显著节约用水。

The increasing population and adverse climate change are escalating fresh water scarcity globally. Since irrigation consumes a large portion of fresh water, it is important to improve the efficiency in irrigation. It is well recognized that if irrigators made more efficient use of water then there would be more water for environmental uses and for cities. According to Alberta Irrigation, in the province of Alberta even a saving of as small as 1% irrigated water would result in savings of about 23 million cubic meters of water each year.**Among different approaches to improve the water usage efficiency in irrigation, one important approach is to close the loop in irrigation control systems to have closed-loop irrigation. From a systems engineering perspective, the current water usage in the irrigation (including lawn irrigation and agriculture irrigation) is primarily performed under open-loop conditions. In closed-loop irrigation, the amount of water supplied to the field is determined based on real-time field feedback signals comprising of measured soil water content, evapotranspiration rate and other on-line sensors. Preliminary studies have shown that closed-loop operation**can lead to a significant saving of water. In this project, we collaborate with InteliRain to develop adaptive closed-loop irrigation algorithms for improved irrigation water management that can be used in both lawn and agriculture irrigation. It is expected that the algorithms will significantly increase the water usage efficiency in irrigation and lead to significant water conservation.