46 results about "Irrigation scheduling" patented technology

The present invention provides an irrigation control system in which a device (irrigation scheduler) automatically modifies irrigation schedules of installed irrigation controllers to affect irrigating of the landscape based on the water requirements of the landscape plants and comprises: providing an irrigation controller programmed to execute irrigations on watering days by closing an electrical circuit connecting the controller and at least one irrigation valve; providing an irrigation scheduler programmed to execute irrigations on substantially equivalent watering days as the irrigation controller; and the irrigation scheduler selectively interrupting the electrical circuit to control the execution of irrigations on watering days. Preferably the microprocessor uses either an ETo value or weather data used in calculating the ETo value to at least partially derive the improved irrigation schedule.

The present invention provides methods for water conservation with irrigation controllers based upon the ambient temperature and extraterrestrial radiation of a particular geographical area. It receives a preliminary irrigation schedule from the operator and computes a water budget ratio by comparing current local geo-environmental data with stored local geo-environmental data, then modifying the preliminary irrigation schedule based upon that ratio. The present invention utilizes fewer variables, is less complex, and is much easier to install and maintain than the current evapotranspiration-based controllers.

An irrigation scheduler modifies output of a preprogrammed irrigation schedule of an installed irrigation controller to at least partially improve irrigation of the corresponding landscape. Preferred embodiments accomplish this task using a microprocessor programmed to: (a) derive a first set of information from the output of an irrigation controller used to control an operation of an irrigation valve; (b) receive a second set of information comprising at least one of an environmental factor and a meteorological factor; and (c) use the first set of information and the second set of information to interfere with reception of the output by the valve.

An irrigation control module is described that adjusts a watering schedule for a connected irrigation controller based on weather data provided by a local weather station. The irrigation control module can add additional weather-based irrigation schedule adjustments to an irrigation controller that may otherwise lack the hardware (e.g., wireless transmitter, sufficient memory) and software (e.g., evapotranspiration algorithms) to store and interpret weather data from a weather station.

An irrigation controller is programmed to automatically initiate communication with a data server to perform at least one of the following functions: (a) exchange irrigation data; (b) receive control data; and (c) receive synchronization data. The irrigation data can be station runtime history, evapotranspiration (ETo) data, rainfall, weather related information, irrigation faults and any other irrigation data. The control data can involve station runtime settings, cycle and soak settings, irrigation scheduling and any other irrigation control data. The synchronization data preferably includes a date and a time, originating from the data server, but can include other data that would be used to synchronize the communication between the irrigation controller and the data server. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention a microprocessor disposed in the irrigation controller is programmed to use the date and time to schedule a future contact with the data server.

A technique for controlling an irrigation system is disclosed. The technique comprises receiving landscape information, receiving environmental information, deriving an irrigation schedule based on the landscape information and the environmental information, and sending the irrigation schedule to an irrigation control unit.

An interactive irrigation system exchanges information between an irrigation controller and a distal computer, between the irrigation controller and a user, between the user and the distal computer, and between the distal computer and a third party. The information is preferably exchanged over an Internet communication system. The exchanged information includes the following: irrigation scheduling; quantity of water applied to the landscape at the user location, which is compared to ETo values; warnings to users when potential problems with their irrigation systems are detected; and other irrigation information that is useful to the user or a third party.

A method of controlling application of a substance to vegetation using data obtained via a mobile machine is provided. A height of the vegetation is measured during a scheduled task of the mobile machine. The measured height of the vegetation is compared with a calculated height of the vegetation. Then, an amount of the substance applied by an irrigation system to an area containing the vegetation is adjusted based on a difference between the measured height of the vegetation and the calculated height of the vegetation.

In one embodiment, the present invention includes irrigation control software for a computer that interacts with the features of a plurality of advanced sprinklers, environmental sensors, and other available data. The irrigation control software provides a graphical user interface to create a more efficient irrigation scheduling control interface.

The invention discloses remote automatic control method and system of a water-saving irrigation system. The method comprises the following steps of utilizing a GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication)/GPRS (General Packet Radio Service)/CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) wireless communication network to transfer a command of a control center to an electromagnetic valve in a remote field, and remotely controlling opening and closing of the electromagnetic valve to enable the irrigation system to automatically carry out irrigation, thereby reaching an unattended state; and feeding back opening and closing signals of the electromagnetic valve in the remote field to the control center through the GSM/GPRS/CDMA wireless communication network so that an operator of the control center can know whether the electromagnetic valve in the remote field receives the command signal. The invention has the advantages of high control accuracy, high control hit rate, rapid sending command response, high automation degree and the like. The operator can preset an irrigation plan of a whole irrigation period, and the system can automatically carry out irrigation according to the irrigation plan and can reach the unattended state.

The invention provides an irrigation decision-making system and method based on an agricultural system model, and belongs to the technical field of agricultural irrigation decision-making. The system comprises a meteorological data interface, a meteorological database, the calibrated agricultural system model, a calibrated agricultural system model base, an irrigation decision-making algorithm, an irrigation decision-making algorithm base and an irrigation control system, wherein the meteorological data interface is used for providing meteorological data needed for calculation for the calibrated agricultural system model, the calibrated agricultural system model is used for conducting calculation according to meteorological conditions to obtain crop growth information and soil and crop moisture conditions, the irrigation decision-making algorithm is used for judging whether irrigation is conducted or not and calculating the irrigation amount according to the model calculation result, and the irrigation control system is used for conducting irrigation according to the irrigation amount calculated by the irrigation decision-making algorithm. The irrigation decision-making system and method based on the agricultural system model overcome the defects of an existing irrigation decision-making system and method, an accurate irrigation plan is made without installing field sensors, and a future irrigation plan and the corresponding irrigation effect can be predicted.

The invention is applicable to the technical field of farmland irrigation, and provides an irrigation control method and device. The method includes the following steps that weather information, collected by a meteorological station module, of a to-be-irrigated region and initial soil moisture information, collected by a soil moisture acquisition module, of the to-be-irrigated region are obtained;the growth state of planting crops in the to-be-irrigated region and the running state of an irrigation device in the to-be-irrigated region are obtained; according to the weather information, the initial soil moisture information and the growth state of the planting crops, an irrigation plan of the to-be-irrigated region is determined; according to the irrigation plan and the running state of the irrigation device, an irrigation command is sent to a control unit, and the irrigation command is used for instructing a control unit to control the irrigation device to carry out the irrigation plan. After adopting the above scheme, the irrigation condition of a farmland can be determined, and the soil moisture is maintained in the optimal range of crop growth.

Plant canopy images and temperature are acquired with a wireless computer vision instrument, and the temperature data are qualified and pixels within the image are classified. The instrument includes sensors for measuring plant radiation due to canopy temperature and an imaging sensor which collects data over four bands, a microprocessor to receive and store and process measured data from the sensors, and a wireless transmitter for transmitting data from the microprocessor to a remote receiver. The data are used to detect plant stress and canopy cover percentage and to qualify temperature data accordingly. The data from the sensors provide information for decision support algorithms related to the initiation of automatic irrigation scheduling as a function of crop canopy cover and water stress, the qualification of temperature data used in automatic irrigation scheduling algorithms, and the detection of diseased crops for the purpose of withholding irrigations when yield potential is compromised.

The invention provides a reservoir irrigation optimal scheduling method considering multiple uncertainties. The method comprises the following steps: constructing an initial scene considering rainfall uncertainty and runoff uncertainty of a space-time topological relation; reducing the initialized scene by adopting a scene reduction criterion based on probability measurement; establishing a reservoir irrigation optimal scheduling model considering the reduction scene; and solving the model in the step 3 by adopting an island group optimization algorithm, and scheduling irrigation water supply according to a calculation result. The reservoir irrigation optimal scheduling model influenced by multiple uncertain factors is established by adopting chaotic scene planning, and the scheduling result is solved by adopting the island group optimization algorithm, so that a good reference is provided for the reservoir irrigation scheduling water quantity, the problems caused by the uncertain factors are effectively solved, and the reservoir irrigation scheduling efficiency is improved. And the reservoir irrigation scheduling level and scheduling accuracy are greatly improved.

The embodiment of the invention provides an actual irrigation area extraction method based on multi-source information, and the method specifically comprises the steps of extracting a potential irrigation area according to the pre-obtained multi-source information, and the multi-source information comprises basic geographic information, meteorological information, irrigation and drainage engineering information, agricultural planting structure information, and irrigation system information; carrying out inversion calculation on the field surface soil water content in the crop growth period inthe potential irrigation area by utilizing remote sensing information; and extracting from the potential irrigation area by adopting different methods according to the water content of the field surface soil to obtain an actual irrigation area. Through the operation, the actual irrigation area can be quickly and effectively obtained, so that a scientific and objective basis can be provided for agricultural water management.

The system and method of watering crops with a variable rate irrigation system provides a means to formulate a watering prescription map even when some required input data is unavailable. In the preferred embodiment, the unavailable input data is measured canopy temperature data from infrared thermometers mounted on a center pivot irrigation pipe. The system is the irrigation scheduling supervisory control and data acquisition system (ISSCADAS) and the method is an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) modeling method that substitutes data from trained existing data sets to estimate the unavailable variable when actual variable measurements are missing or invalid.