Crop-optimized irrigation system for digital agriculture

Abstract

This irrigation system comprises: an environment measurement device installed at an agricultural site to collect environmental information from the agricultural site; an irrigation system database for storing the environmental information collected by the environment measurement device; an analysis module for producing operation information necessary for controlling an irrigation device on the basis of the environment information stored in the irrigation system database; an operation information transfer module for transferring the operation information produced by the analysis module to the irrigation device; and the irrigation device for supplying water to the agricultural site on the basis of the produced operation information.

Description

Optimal Crop Irrigation Systems for Digital Agriculture

[0001] The technology described below is for an irrigation system that can be used to grow crops.

[0002] This application is the result of research conducted with the support of the Information and Communications Technology Planning and Evaluation Institute with funding from the government (Ministry of Science and ICT) as follows.

[0003] 1. Project ID: 1711193344, Research Project Name: Regional Intelligence Innovation Talent Development (Grand ICT Research Center), Research Project Name: Grand ICT Research Center (Suncheon National University).

[0004] 2. Project ID: 1711198848, Research Project Name: Training of Information, Communication, and Broadcasting Innovation Talents, Research Project Title: Implementation of Smart Distribution for Low-Carbon Agricultural Technology and Wellness Agricultural and Food Value Enhancement (Suncheon National University).

[0005] Irrigation refers to the supply and management of water used in agriculture and other fields. Irrigation is a crucial process for the effective cultivation of crops. Effective irrigation ensures efficient use of water, meeting crop moisture needs while minimizing water waste. This maximizes agricultural productivity. Improper irrigation can damage crop health and other health issues.

[0006] [Prior Art Literature]

[0007] [Patent Document]

[0008] Korean Patent Publication No. 10-2009-0042575

[0009] Traditional agricultural irrigation methods are primarily manual and follow fixed patterns, failing to account for diverse environmental conditions and crop characteristics. Furthermore, these methods result in significant water waste and, especially under extreme climate conditions like drought or excessive rainfall, can severely impact crop productivity. Furthermore, conventional irrigation methods fail to adequately account for diverse factors, such as soil type, crop species, growth stage, and climate conditions, limiting their ability to optimize crop growth conditions.

[0010] With the recent development of IoT technologies like artificial intelligence, smart farm technologies that integrate these technologies into agriculture are being developed. Smart farm technologies can be used to efficiently manage farms based on various data measured in agricultural fields.

[0011] The technology described below is intended to disclose an irrigation system that can provide optimal irrigation by analyzing soil condition and weather information.

[0012] An irrigation system includes an environmental measurement device installed in an agricultural field to collect environmental information of the agricultural field; an irrigation system database that stores the environmental information collected by the environmental measurement device; an analysis module that generates operation information necessary to control an irrigation device based on the environmental information stored in the irrigation system database; an operation information transmission module that transmits the operation information generated by the analysis module to the irrigation device; and an irrigation device that supplies water to the agricultural field based on the generated operation information.

[0013] The technology described below can automatically supply and manage water to farmland and other areas without human intervention. This saves labor and resources required to irrigate farmland.

[0014] The technology described below can improve agricultural sustainability and promote efficient use of water resources. This allows for a shift from conventional, manual, uniform irrigation methods to a more precise, tailored water supply tailored to the specific needs of crops.

[0015] Figure 1 is a general diagram of the irrigation system.

[0016] Figure 2 is a flowchart of one embodiment of an irrigation system irrigating an agricultural field.

[0017] Figure 3 is a configuration of one embodiment of an irrigation system.

[0018] The technology described below is susceptible to various modifications and embodiments. Specific embodiments of the technology described below may be illustrated in the drawings of the specification. However, these are intended to illustrate the technology described below and are not intended to limit the technology described below to any specific embodiments. Therefore, it should be understood that all modifications, equivalents, or alternatives that fall within the spirit and scope of the technology described below are encompassed by the technology described below.

[0019] In the terms used hereinafter, singular expressions should be understood to include plural expressions unless the context clearly dictates otherwise, and terms such as "comprises" should be understood to mean the presence of a described feature, number, step, operation, component, part, or combination thereof, but not to exclude the possibility of the presence or addition of one or more other features, numbers, steps, operations, components, parts, or combinations thereof.

[0020] Before going into a detailed description of the drawings, it should be made clear that the division of components in this specification is merely a division based on the main function of each component. That is, two or more components described below may be combined into one component, or one component may be further divided into two or more components with more detailed functions. In addition to its own main function, each component described below may additionally perform some or all of the functions of other components, and of course, some of the main functions of each component may be exclusively performed by other components.

[0021] Additionally, in performing a method or method of operation, each process constituting the method may occur in a different order than the stated order, unless the context clearly indicates a specific order. That is, each process may occur in the same order as the stated order, may be performed substantially simultaneously, or may be performed in the opposite order.

[0022] Figure 1 is a general diagram of the irrigation system.

[0023] Irrigation systems can take a variety of physical forms. For example, they can take the form of a PC, laptop, smart device, server, or dedicated data processing chipset.

[0024] The irrigation system may include an agricultural field (100), an environmental measurement device (200), an analysis device (300), and an irrigation device (400).

[0025] An agricultural site (100) may include a site where agricultural industry is taking place. In one embodiment, the agricultural site (100) may include a smart greenhouse (101), a smart field (102), and indoor farming (103).

[0026] An agricultural site (100) may be a site where an irrigation system attempts to control irrigation. In other words, an irrigation system may be a system that automatically supplies water when the soil, etc., is lacking moisture without human intervention in an agricultural site.

[0027] The environmental measurement device (200) may be a device installed in an agricultural field (100) to collect various environmental information of the agricultural field (100).

[0028] The environmental measurement device (200) may include a soil information measurement sensor (201). The soil information measurement sensor (200) may measure soil information of an agricultural field (100). The soil information may include information about the soil in which plants are growing. In one embodiment, the soil information may include information such as the type of soil (sand, soil, etc.), soil pH, soil organic matter content, soil moisture content, soil physical properties, soil microbial information, soil thickness, etc.

[0029] The environmental measurement device (200) may include a weather information measurement sensor (202). The soil information measurement sensor (201) may measure weather information of an agricultural field. The weather information may include information about the weather in an agricultural field where plants are growing. In one embodiment, the weather information may include information such as temperature, humidity, wind speed, wind direction, rainfall, atmospheric pressure, sunlight, and snowfall.

[0030] The analysis device (300) may be a device that generates operation information necessary to control the irrigation device (400) from environmental information.

[0031] The analysis device (300) may include an irrigation system database (301), an analysis module (302), an operation information transmission module (303), an abnormal situation notification module (304), and an operation result and crop status output module (305).

[0032] The irrigation system database (301) can store environmental information measured by the environmental measurement device (200). Furthermore, the irrigation system database (301) can store the results analyzed by the analysis module (302). In other words, the irrigation system database (301) can store the operation information generated by the analysis module. The results analyzed by the analysis module (302) can be used to update or renew the analysis module (302) in the future.

[0033] The analysis module (302) may be a module that generates operation information necessary to control an irrigation device (400) from environmental information. Specifically, the analysis module (302) may be a module that analyzes environmental information stored in an irrigation system database (301) and then generates operation information capable of controlling the operation of an irrigation device (400) to achieve optimal irrigation conditions.

[0034] The analysis module can utilize an artificial intelligence (AI) model. AI can refer to a field that studies artificial intelligence or the methodologies for creating it. Machine learning is a field of artificial intelligence technology that enables computing devices to learn from data to understand specific objects or conditions, or to identify and classify patterns in data. It can be an algorithm that enables computers to analyze data. Machine learning models can be of various types. For example, machine learning models can be decision trees, random forests (RF), k-nearest neighbors (KNN), naive Bayes, support vector machines (SVM), and artificial neural networks (ANN). The ANN can be a deep neural network (DNN), which can include convolutional neural networks (CNN), recurrent neural networks (RNN), restricted boltzmann machines (RBM), deep belief networks (DBN), generative adversarial networks (GAN), and relational networks (RL).

[0035] The operation information may be a signal required to control the irrigation device (400). In one embodiment, the operation information may include information about the operating time of the irrigation device (400), the amount of water supplied by the irrigation device (400), the operating frequency of the irrigation device (400), the type of water supplied by the irrigation device (400), and the area to which the irrigation device (400) supplies water.

[0036] The motion information transmission module (303) may be a module that transmits motion information generated by the analysis module (302). The motion information transmission module (303) may transmit the motion information to the irrigation system database (301), the abnormal situation notification module (304), and the motion result and crop status output module (305). The motion information transmission module (303) may transmit the motion information to the irrigation device (400).

[0037] The abnormal situation notification module (304) may be a module that notifies when a problem occurs during the operation of the irrigation system. In one embodiment, the abnormal situation notification module (304) may notify the manager of the occurrence of an abnormal situation through sound, etc. Alternatively, the abnormal situation notification module (304) may notify the manager of the occurrence of an abnormal situation through text messages, etc., to a personal device (such as a mobile phone). Alternatively, the abnormal situation notification module (304) may notify the manager of the occurrence of an abnormal situation through a device capable of outputting visual information, such as a display.

[0038] The operation result and crop status output module (305) may be a module that outputs the operation result generated by the analysis module (302). Alternatively, the operation result and crop status output module (305) may be a module that outputs the current status of the crop. Based on the results output by the operation result and crop status output module (305), the manager can know what operation is currently being performed or what the current status of the crop is. Through this, the manager can check whether the irrigation system is operating properly or whether there are areas that need improvement.

[0039] The irrigation device (400) may be a device that supplies water to an agricultural field. The irrigation device (400) may be installed in the agricultural field. The irrigation device (400) may be a device that irrigates an agricultural field based on the motion information generated by the analysis device (300). In one embodiment, the irrigation device (400) may be a device that supplies water to an agricultural field through a device such as a sprinkler. Alternatively, the irrigation device (400) may be a device that supplies water to an agricultural field using an unmanned aerial vehicle such as a drone.

[0040]

[0041] Figure 2 is a flowchart (500) of one embodiment of an irrigation system irrigating an agricultural field.

[0042] The environmental measurement device (200) can collect various environmental information of an agricultural field (100) (510). As described above, the environmental measurement device (200) can include a soil information measurement sensor (201) and a weather information measurement sensor (2020). Therefore, the environmental information can include soil information and weather information.

[0043] Environmental information collected by the environmental measurement device (200) can be stored in the irrigation system database (301) (520).

[0044] The analysis module (302) can analyze environmental information stored in the irrigation system database (301) to generate operation information necessary for controlling the irrigation device (530). As described above, the analysis module (302) can generate operation information using an artificial intelligence-based model.

[0045] The irrigation device (400) can supply water to an agricultural field (100) based on the generated motion information (540).

[0046] The irrigation system database (301) can store generated motion information (550). By storing the generated motion information in the irrigation system database, it can be compared with previously generated motion information. This allows the analysis module to be adjusted to generate better motion information.

[0047] Figure 3 is a configuration of another embodiment of an irrigation system.

[0048] The irrigation system (600) may include an input device (610), a storage device (620), an operation device (630), an output device (640), an interface device (650), and a communication device (660).

[0049] The input device (610) may include an interface device (keyboard, mouse, touch screen, etc.) that receives a certain command or data. The input device (610) may also include a configuration that receives information through a separate storage device (USB, CD, hard disk, etc.). The input device (610) may receive the input data through a separate measuring device or a separate database. The input device (610) may also receive data through wired or wireless communication through a communication device (660). The input device (610) may receive environmental information. The environmental information may include soil information and weather information.

[0050] The storage device (620) may be a device that stores certain information. The storage device (620) may store information input through the input device (610). The storage device (620) may store information generated during the operation of the computing device (630). That is, the storage device (620) may include a memory. The storage device (620) may store environmental information. The storage device (620) may store an artificial intelligence-based model. The storage device (620) may store an irrigation system database.

[0051] The computing device (630) may be a device such as a processor, AP, or a chip embedded with a program that processes data and performs certain operations. The computing device (630) may be a device that performs operations required during the operation of the irrigation system. The computing device (630) may generate operation information based on environmental information. The computing device (630) may determine whether a problem has occurred during the operation of the irrigation system. The computing device (630) may determine whether to notify the system of the problem that has occurred.

[0052] The output device (640) may be a device that outputs certain information. The output device (640) may output interfaces required for data processing, input data, analysis results, etc. The output device (640) may be physically implemented in various forms, such as a display, a device that outputs documents, a speaker, etc. The output device (640) may output information stored in the storage device (630). The output device (640) may output information generated during the process of the calculation device (630) performing calculations. The output device (640) may output the result of the calculation performed by the calculation device (630). The output device (640) may output the result of an operation. The output device (640) may be a module that outputs the current state of the crop. The output device (640) may know what operation the current irrigation device is performing or the current state of the crop.

[0053] The interface device (650) may be a device that receives certain commands and data from an external source. The interface device (650) may receive a control signal for controlling the irrigation system (600). The interface device (650) may output the results analyzed by the irrigation system (600).

[0054] The communication device (660) may refer to a configuration that receives and transmits certain information via a wired or wireless network. The communication device (660) may perform network communication such as Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity), Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth, UWB (Ultra Wide Band), NFC (Near Field Communication), USB (Universal Serial Bus), HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface), LAN (Local Area Network), etc. The communication device (660) may receive a control signal necessary to control the irrigation system (600). The communication device (660) may transmit the results analyzed by the irrigation system (600). The communication device (660) may communicate with the personal terminal of the manager. The communication device (660) may transmit alarm information to notify the manager of an abnormal situation.

Claims

1. An environmental measuring device installed in an agricultural field to collect environmental information of the agricultural field; An irrigation system database storing environmental information collected by the above environmental measuring device; An analysis module that generates operation information necessary to control an irrigation device based on environmental information stored in the above irrigation system database; A motion information transmission module that transmits motion information generated by the above analysis module to the irrigation device; and An irrigation system, comprising an irrigation device that supplies water to the agricultural field based on the generated motion information.

2. In paragraph 1, The above agricultural field includes a smart greenhouse, smart field and indoor farming, irrigation system.

3. In paragraph 1, An irrigation system, wherein the environmental measuring device includes at least one of a soil information measuring sensor and a weather information measuring sensor.

4. In paragraph 1, The above analysis module is an irrigation system that generates the operation information from the environmental information using an artificial intelligence-based model.

5. In paragraph 1, An irrigation system further comprising an abnormal situation notification module that notifies a problem that has occurred when a problem occurs during the operation of the above irrigation system.

6. In paragraph 1, An irrigation system further comprising an operation result and crop status output module that outputs the operation result generated by the above analysis module.

7. The step of collecting environmental information of agricultural fields by environmental measuring devices; A step of storing environmental information collected by the above environmental measuring device in an irrigation system database; A step in which the analysis module analyzes environmental information stored in the irrigation system database to generate operation information necessary to control the irrigation device; A step in which the motion information shear module transmits the motion information generated by the analysis module to the irrigation device; A step of supplying water to an agricultural field based on the generated operation information by the above irrigation device; and A method for irrigating an agricultural field using an irrigation system, comprising: a step of storing the generated operation information in the irrigation system database;

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