“ Within a few years a simple and inexpensive device, readily carried about, will enable one to receive on land or sea the principal news, to hear a speech, a lecture, a song or play of a musical instrument, conveyed from any other region of the globe. The invention will also meet the crying need for cheap transmission to great distances, more especially over the oceans. The small working capacity of the cables and the excessive cost of messages are now fatal impediments in the dissemination of intelligence which can only be removed by transmission without wires.”
Nikola Tesla inventor, engineer, physicist & futurist
with the “crying need” for wireless data transmission. The confluence and availability of these and other innovations in recent decades are often collectively termed the “internet of things.” This has resulted in what many consider a new era in agricultural irrigation management, whereby remote control and feedback is now operational and profitable. Its adoption is resulting in more efficient use of resources for crop production, including significant but often overlooked reductions in expenditures, such as management time and transportation to and from field sites.
W
Four main components of irrigation management
Irrigation remote control and feedback includes numerous components, and the development and adoption of these components has historically paralleled other engineered systems. However, a general consensus is that agriculture has lagged other industries due to numerous factors, such as the need for high- speed rural internet, remote and often inaccessible field sites, longer wireless data transmission requirements, and much harsher operating conditions, among others. With many of these barriers being overcome, numerous components are now (or soon will be) commercially available. These can be purchased as a turnkey complete system and service or built as a custom system and expanded according to management needs (see fig. 1 on pg. 22). These components can be organized into four broad categories, which roughly correspond to their function and chronological development: 1) control panel; 2) remote control; 3) soil, plant and weather feedback; and 4) analytics.
ith this quote from 1905, Nikola Tesla is credited with envisioning the smart phone nearly 100 years before its time, along
1 Control panel 2
The traditional control panel function is to control, monitor (i.e., feedback and alerts) and record all variables of interest of the irrigation system. The control panel has evolved from a box containing analog switches and gauges (which may control and monitor, but do not record) to digital touch screens. The complete system of hardware and software used to control, monitor and record any process or system, including irrigation, is termed Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, also referred to as SCADA. One such system was developed and patented for variable rate irrigation, termed the Irrigation Scheduling Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, abbreviated as ISSCADA. Most SCADA systems, including ISSCADA, also include at least one component of remote control; soil, plant and weather feedback; and analytics.
Remote control
The consolidation of irrigated areas under a single management entity has increased the need for remote control, where the complete SCADA system can be accessed off-site. Many irrigation systems are at remote, often difficult-to-access locations (especially following precipitation) and lack telephone landlines. Therefore, remote control often requires wireless communication (e.g., cellular, satellite, real time, Wi-Fi), which can be linked to a mobile device directly or via the internet. Remote control software (i.e., apps) can reside and execute virtually anywhere in the system, such as in the component firmware, on the web and in the mobile device.
Stationary wireless infrared thermometers measuring the canopy and soil temperatures of soybeans
and a micrometeorological sensor mast at the Bushland Northeast large weighing lysimeter Photo credit: Paul Colaizzi
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