Emerging wireless RF and sensor technologies along with continued advances in information technology provide new opportunities to improve upon precision irrigation systems. The paper describes an integrated system for monitoring and control of self-propelled irrigation system remotely and in real time. The system includes a three major components: 1) a nozzle control system consisting of a set of solenoids controlling one or more nozzles connected to a relay controller wired directly to a single board computer (SBC); 2) a sensor network consisting of a 900 MHz frequency hopping spread spectrum radio telemetry network deployed in a star topology to monitor soil water status, position of the irrigation spans, and line pressure and flow rates by irrigation zone interfaced by radio to the SBC; and (3) a wireless Ethernet bridge from the SBC to a remote server. The irrigation system is controlled via a C software program using a GNU GCC compiler running on Linux. The software turns each nozzle or group of nozzles on or off for a prescribed period defined as the number of seconds operating per minute (on/off ratio) based on a defined application rate. Applications rates are pre-established for each location in the field and nozzles controlled according to an application map loaded on the SBC from the server via the Ethernet connection. The SBC stores irrigation system position, system pressure and flow, and sensor network data and sends these performance data to the remote server where it is stored in a database. The data is mapped in a GIS to track current and cumulative application rates. Preliminary tests showed that location accuracy for nozzle changes was approximately 1 meter and nozzle timing (on/off ratio) was approximately 5%.
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