TECH CORNER
“There are some great advanced irrigation technologies available, but they are complex, underutilized, difficult to use and not well integrated in existing control systems; therefore, their benefits are not being fully realized,” Porter said.
She said the cooperative and complementary efforts in several research studies at the research facilities shared by AgriLife Research and U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service near Amarillo are changing that.
Marek said they were able to significantly improve commercially available systems by developing the technology suite.
“In our case, advanced automation includes automated communication of data from soil water sensors to the pivot controller,” he said. “We are using a processing model that looks at recent field data and the status today, plus a machine-learning process to integrate data and decisions with an automated controller. Together this tells the user and the system what to do and when. The system is also unique in that it logs all of what it does, and all of this happens at the pivot.”
The project team has several patents pending as a result of the work, Marek said.
Funding and in-kind support for the project was provided by a Texas A&M University System Water Seed Grant, AgriLife Research, AgriLife Extension, Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, High Plains Underground Water Conservation District and the USDA-ARS Ogallala Aquifer Program.
Kay Ledbetter is an associate editor/senior writer/media relations specialist for Texas A&M AgriLife.
CPACS team members
Jiang Hu, PhD, co-director of graduate programs in the Texas A&M Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Bryan-College Station
Gary Marek, PhD, U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service agricultural engineer, Bushland
Thomas Marek, PE, Texas A&M AgriLife Research senior research engineer, Amarillo
Dana Porter, PhD, PE, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service program leader, Lubbock
Qingwu Xue, PhD, AgriLife Research crop stress physiologist, Amarillo
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