Vol. 60, No.

1 / 2020 INMATEH –

EVALUATION OF AN AUTOMATIC CONTROL SYSTEM WITH DRIP IRRIGATION

Moataz Elnemr
Department of Agricultural Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Damietta University / Egypt
Tel: +201062084800; E-mail: moknemr@du.edu.eg
DOI: https://doi.org/10.35633/inmateh-60-18

Keywords: automatic control, closed-loop, evaluation, drip irrigation, poor hydraulic performance, real-time

ABSTRACT
A field experiment was conducted with the purpose of testing and evaluating the use of a closed-loop,
real-time control system which was developed by (Elnemr M.K., 2017) for application to a poor hydraulic
performance drip irrigation system with sandy loam soil cultivated with cucumber crop. This control system
collects soil moisture data through three sensors distributed along each third of the lateral. The control system
was based on calculating the average soil moisture content (MC) of the three readings and using it as an
indicator to start or stop irrigation process according to the requirements of the plant. The control system will
start the pump after the depletion of allowed MC percentage of available water which is one of the required
inputs to operate the control system. The irrigation process continues until reaching the field capacity (FC)
value. The study compared two management methods for the irrigation system. First one was using the
proposed control system (Aum) and the other one was manual operation based on calculating water
requirement from climatic data (Clm). Using the proposed control system led to increase cucumber crop
production by 23.8% of Clm productivity. The control system led to save water and seasonal irrigation time.
This led to increase water productivity and energy use efficiency of Au m if compared to Clm by 41.71% and
110% respectively. Despite the added cost to the irrigation system because of the control system, the
benefit/cost ratio for Aum was higher by 24.39% due to the decrease in energy and labour costs in addition to
the increase in crop production. The study recommended using the researched control system with drip
irrigation systems which show poor hydraulic performance to reduce negative effects on crop production and
to reach more efficient use for both water and energy with keeping the opportunity to increase benefit/cost
ratio. Further studies should be done on the system with drip irrigation system that work under acceptable
ranges of hydraulic performance. Also, further studies should be done to investigate the most effective and
suitable distribution of the sensors along lateral.

‫ملخص‬
‫تم اجراء تحربة حقلية بغرض اختبار وتقييم استخدام نظام تحكم أوتوماتيكي من نوع الحلقة المغلفة والوقت الحقيقي تم تطويره بواسطة النمر‬
‫ يقوم النظام بتجميع بيانات المحتوى‬.‫) للتطبيق على نظام رى بالتنقيط ذو أداء هيدروليكي ضعيف في تربة رملية لومية مزروعة بمحصول الخيار‬2017(
‫ يعتمد نظام التحكم‬.‫الرطوبي للتربة من خالل توزيع ثالث حساسات للرطوبة داخل التربة على طول الخط الحقلي بحيث يكون كل منها في أحد اثالث الخط‬
‫ يقوم النظام بتشغيل طلمبة الرى عند‬.‫على حساب متوسط الرطوبة للقراءات الثالث واستخدامها كمؤشر لبدء عملية الرى أو ايقافها طبقا ً الحتياجات النبات‬
‫استنفاذ نسبة الرطوبة المسموح بها من الماء الميسر والتي هى أحد مدخالت تشغيل نظام التحكم وتستمر عملية الرى حتى الوصول للسعة الحقلية وهى نقطة‬
‫بين طريقتين إلدارة نظام الرى األولى باستخدام نظام التحكم المقترح واألخرى تشغيل النظام بشكل يدوي اعتماداً على حساب‬. ‫ قارنت الدراسة‬.‫ايقاف التشغيل‬
‫ مقارنة بإنتاجية المعاملة‬%23.8 ‫ أدى استخدام نظام التحكم المقترح إلى زيادة في محصول الخيار بنسبة بلغت‬.‫االحتياجات المائية من خالل البيانات المناخية‬
‫ ادى ذلك الى زيادة انتاجية المياه‬.‫كما أدى االعتماد على نظام التحكم الى توفير في مياه وزمن الرى خالل الموسم‬. ً‫المدارة اعتماداً على البيانات المناخية‬
‫بالرغم من زيادة تكاليف نظام الرى نتيجة استخدام نظام التحكم‬.‫ مقارنة بالتشغيل اليدوي‬%110 ‫ مع زيادة في كفاءة استخدام الطاقة بنسبة‬%41.71 ‫بنسبة‬
‫ لمعاملة التحكم األوتوماتيكي مقارنة بالتشغيل اليدوي نتيجة تقليل تكلفة العمالة والطاقة‬%24.39 ‫اال أن هناك زيادة في نسبة العائد الى التكاليف بمقدار‬
‫ أوصت الدراسة باستخدام نظام التحكم المقترح لتجنب اآلثار السلبية لألداء الهيدروليكي الضعيف من ناحية الحفاظ على االنتاجية‬.‫باإلضافة لزيادة المحصول‬
‫ وأوصت الدراسة بإجراء مزيد من التجارب‬.‫ التكاليف‬/‫في مستواها الطبيعي واستخدام المياه والطاقة بشكل أكثر كفاءة مع الحفاظ على فرصة زيادة نسبة العائد‬
.‫لتحديد التوزيع األمثل ألجهزة االستشعار الخاصة بنظام التحكم وعددها األمثل على طول الخط الحقلي للوصول ألفضل أداء ممكن للنظام المقترح‬

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INTRODUCTION
Scarcity of water worldwide created a competition between all water resources consumers (FAO, 2013).
Agriculture is the main source of people food and one of the main consumers of water resources. Increasing
water use efficiency beside energy saving in agriculture has been a big concern. Trickle irrigation systems
including drip irrigation are highly recommended for saving water and increase water use efficiency (Luquet et
al., 2005). Actual field practices with drip irrigation may affect reaching the goals of improved saving water and
crop production (Lankford B., 2012; van der Kooij et al., 2013). Sometimes, drip irrigation system users may
suffer from poor hydraulic performance of the system due to poor design or management as well as they may
have to use cheaper system components if they can’t afford the capital needs. Inexperienced users will also
suffer from their inability to operate their irrigation systems in an optimum way in addition to their low skills in
system performance monitoring. Using decision support systems and automatic control introduces applicable
solutions to avoid the negative impacts which may result from the existence of one or all of poor design,
management, and operation. Such improved management utilities when used with different crops as a
monitoring tool (Zhang et al., 2013) will be useful for increasing irrigation efficiency (Smarsly K., 2013).
Prediction of water needs is a key issue to the automatic control systems to reach success and effective
scheduling. Generally, the main two ways of data processing in control systems are open-loop and closed-
loop technics. Open-loop control systems miss the feedback data about soil moisture in the root zone which
may change the irrigation scheduling strategy. Open-loop control systems technique was used by (Smith M.,
2000; Zwart and Bastiaanssen, 2004; Giusti and Marsili-Libelli, 2015) to reduce the prediction of the water
needs resulted from climatic data but they were unable to achieve this. Using closed-loop control systems and
using sensors to collect data is the key to successive irrigation management in main extensive crops (Ruíz-
García et al., 2009). Studies made by (Kim et al, 2008, Kim et al, 2009; Pfitscher et al., 2012), pointed out the
importance of using real time, closed-loop automatic control to improve the performance of irrigation systems
including efficient water and energy use. Despite the possibility of real time monitoring through the automatic
control systems for the soil moisture, the distribution of soil moisture along laterals was not approached in most
of the control systems presented. The more accurate data received by soil moisture sensors, the easier to
access successful management through the irrigation control system. Hydraulic performance describes how
uniform is the distribution of flow rates along the lateral. Irrigation uniformity plays an essential role to increase
crop production, water use efficiency, and net profits (Li and Kawano, 1996; López-Mata et al., 2010). If there
is a high variation between flow rates along the lateral, it will be hard to choose the point(s) which describe
real soil moisture content accurately to decide the right scheduling strategy by the control system. This study
aims to evaluate the implication of a real-time, closed-loop control system developed by (Elnemr M.K., 2017)
with drip irrigation system working under poor uniformity conditions to investigate the effect of using the
mentioned control system on water and energy use efficiency under such conditions besides making an
economic evaluation to its use effect on net profits generated by the added cost.
.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The field experiment location was 31.41º N, 31.75º E in Kafrelbatikh city, Damietta Governorate, Egypt
on cucumber crop (Sahim F1) with sandy loam soil. Seeds planting started at 1/3/2019. Seeding rate was 3
seeds/pore then it was reduced to 1 plant/pore after germination. Area dimensions were 20m width, 40m long.
5-share chisel plough was hitched to 60hp tractor to achieve the required soil fragmentation. Amounts of 750-
800-600 kg.ha-1 of Ammonium sulphate, Single Superphosphate, and Potassium sulphate, respectively, were
scattered on the soil surface on three stages which were vegetative development, flowering, and fruit
development. Soil surface levelling was carried out using a scraper to maintain the horizontal level of the soil
at zero level. Table 1 illustrates some physical properties of the soil in the experimental site.
Table 1
Physical properties of experiment soil
Depth, Soil particles size distribution Field Wilting
Texture
cm Clay,% Silt,% Sand,% capacity, % point, %
0-15 18.50 1.50 80.00 Sandy loam 19.48 9.06
15-30 19.13 2.52 78.35 Sandy loam 17.05 8.79
30-45 15.93 1.99 82.08 Sandy loam 16.69 7.05
45-60 17.05 2.01 80.94 Sandy loam 18.29 7.44

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Drip irrigation network was divided into two parts, each of them performing one treatment. The difference
between the two treatments was managing on/off decision for pumping water. First part was managed using
the automatic control system (Aum), second one was managed basing on climate data and operated by
irrigation system operator (Clm). Three laterals were established to act three replicates of each treatment. As
shown in Figure 1, drip irrigation system consisted of 1 HP centrifugal electric pump that suctions water from
water basin 0.6 m3 which was always filled with fresh water to assure the existence of water when the control
system operates the pump. The pump was connected to the water basin by a PVC pipe with 2.5 cm inner
diameter. Manifold was a PVC pipe with 6.3 cm inner diameter. Built in emitters were used in laterals having
16 mm inner diameter and 20m length. Emitters were 50cm spacing along each lateral and the space between
laterals was 1.5m. All laterals’ inner diameter was 16mm. The pump was connected to the control system
through a cable to permit the electric current to switch the pump on. Operating pressure head was measured
using a pressure gauge fitted on the manifold.

Control system
v1 v2
Electric pump
Water basin
Pressure gauge
Ball Valve

Sensor
Laterals

Fig.1 - Irrigation network and field experiment layout

Water inlet to the two parts was controlled by two valves which were marked v1 and v2 in Figure 1. V1
was always open. V2 was opened just with the need to irrigate (Clm) treatment. All the laterals started with T-
shape valves with the same diameter of the laterals. Water flow to automatically controlled laterals was
prevented during the irrigation of the other treatment by closing the T-shape valves. The control system has
the ability to operate the pump at any time decided by the user for any required duration. This feature was
used to irrigate the (Clm) treatment. After finishing irrigating the second part, the system was turned to
automatic mode to control the first part basing on soil moisture data. Irrigation interval for Clm was 72h.
The used control system was developed by (Elnemr, M.K., 2017). Control system components, sensors
calibration, and design considerations were shown in (Elnemr M., 2019). The designed algorithm of the control
system was based on collecting soil moisture content data from the soil under three emission points along
each third of lateral length to consider flow rate variation between emitters. The evaluated control system was
recommended to be used with the poor hydraulic performance trickle irrigation systems. The average of the
three collected values of soil moisture content was used to express the soil moisture content value (MC) which
will be used to manage the irrigation system.
The system should be fed at the beginning of irrigation network installation with three values namely soil
field capacity (FC), and permanent wilting point (PWP) which are related to soil properties, in addition to
moisture allowed depletion (MAD) which is directly related to crop type. All these inputs were entered to the
system as percentages with two digits accuracy. The values of FC and PWP used in the experiment were
17.9% and 8.1% respectively. These values are the average of the four values related to these constants as
listed in Table 1.
MCon is the soil moisture content at which the control system will give the decision of starting the pump;
it will be calculated according to the following equation:
MAD
MCon = ( FC − PWP)(1 − ), [%] (1)
100

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The control system was designed to start irrigation process when the soil moisture content reaches the
allowed percentage of available water and stop the water pumping after reaching the FC. Corresponding
values resulted from sensor calibration of FC and PWP were fed to the system. Values of FC and PWP shown
in Table 1 were used. MAD value was 25% for cucumber as a shallow rooted crop (Phocaides A., 2007).
The first and second thirds length were 7m and last third was 6m long. Sensors were located under the
middle emitter of each third after assuring it is unclogged. Each sensor was put at 20 cm depth as
recommended by (Rivera et al. 2012). Sensors were connected to the control system through shielded cable
which had three ends, two for negative and positive electrodes and the third one for sending the signal.
Primary field experiments were carried out to choose the operating head that would reflect poor hydraulic
performance for the irrigation system. Uniformity coefficient parameter (UC) was selected to evaluate the
system performance with four operating pressure heads which were 5, 8, 10, 20m of water. UC values under
different pressure heads were calculated using the spread sheet developed by (El-Nemr M.K., 2012). Flow
rates of 20 emitters from a certain lateral were collected in 250 ml capacity cans. Flow rates were collected at
once by operating the system for 2 minutes and the resulted water volume was calculated in l/h. Obtained UC
values and their evaluation referring to (ASAE, 1997) are listed in table 2. Referring to UC values, the operating
pressure 8m was used during the experiment as the evaluation of uniformity is poor.
Table 2
Values of UC, %
Pressure head [m] UC [%] Evaluation
5 48.14 Unacceptable
8 65.20 Poor
10 85.95 Very good
20 90.27 Excellent

Crop water requirements for the climatic data-based part of the experiment were calculated according
to (FAO, 1998). CLIMWAT program (FAO, 1993) was used to obtain daily reference evapotranspiration (ETo)
values from Damietta meteorological station (31.25º N and 31.49º E) which covers the experimental area. The
Crop coefficient values were 0.6, 1, and 0.75 for the initial, crop development, mid-season, and late-season
growing periods (Phocaides A., 2007).
Picking started when cucumber fruit reached the acceptable marketing size (the length of cucumber was
10-14 cm and/or 2 cm diameter). After finishing the growing season, average of three replicates was used to
describe the total productivity of each treatment.
Water productivity (Wp) has been used to describe the relationship between cucumber crop production
and the total amount of water used. It was determined in kg m-3 by applying the following equation:
Y
WP = [kg/m3] (2)
Wa
where Y= Crop yield, [kg], Wa= Amount of applied water, [m3].

Energy use efficiency (EUE) indicator was used to express the relationship between crop productivity
(kg) and energy consumption (kWh) as follows:
Crop productivity
EUE = [kg / kWh ] (3)
Energy consumption
The pump brake power was calculated according to Equation 4.
Pw
BP = [kW] (4)

where: BP= engine brake power, [kW]; Pw= water power, [kW];
ƞ= Pump efficiency which was taken 0.70.

Pw = Q  H t   [kW] (5)

where:
Q= required discharge at the network, [m3/h]; Ht= total head, [m]; ω = water specific weight, [kg/m3].

Ht = H f + H s + H e [m] (6)

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where: Hf =friction loss, [m]; Hs =static suction head, [m]; He =emitter operating pressure head, [m].
The suction static head was neglected because the water suction level in the water basin and pump
water inlet was nearly at the same level. Hazen-Williams formula (Hazen and Williams, 1920) was used to
calculate the friction loss for the manifold and laterals.
10.67Q1.85
Hf = L [m] (7)
C 1.85 .d 4.87
where: d = inside pipe diameter in m, L= Length of the pipe in m, Q=Total flow rate m3.h-1, C= Formula constant
which was 150 for both PVC and PE pipes.
Minor friction losses were assumed 10% of the total friction loss (El-Gindy et al., 2001). Energy
consumption was calculated by multiplying the calculated power requirement in the total operation time per
season for each treatment. Average of emitters flow rates was used to calculate the operation time for the
climatically based part. The control system was provided with a time recorder to record total operation hours
done by the system.
The total annual cost per hectare for the growing season was calculated referring to Buchanan, et al.
2002 based on the Egyptian market information for the year 2019. Required cost data were collected in
Egyptian pound (EGP) as a unit of price then converted to US$ which had average price 17.39 EGP during
experiment time. Total cost equalled the summation of total annual fixed and variable costs. Fixed costs
included depreciation of network components, interest, and taxes and insurance costs. The depreciation costs
of the different irrigation network components were calculated according to Equation 9:
Asset cos t − Re sidual value [US $] (8)
Depreciation cost=
Useful life of the asset

The variable costs included energy, labour, repair and maintenance, and additive costs including
pesticides, seeds, fertilizers, land rent, and transportation. The residual value of an object was assumed 10%
of the price of new object case. The automatic control system cost was 466.06 US$ with 5 years useful life.
Life span of the pump and network components was assumed 10 years. The interest value was 13.5% while
taxes and insurance were 2% of the original asset cost of an object. Energy cost (0.04 US$/ kWh). Labour
fees were 5.75 US$/day/person for 8 hours working day. Repairs and maintenance costs were assumed to
equal the depreciation cost. Profit of cucumber crop per kg was 0.29 US$. The benefits-cost ratio (B/C) was
used to describe the final crop profitability for the farmer.

RESULTS
Picking process finished on 11/5/2019. Using automatic control led to increase cucumber production by
23.80% if compared to the production of (Clm). Production of (Aum) reached 15.81 Mg.ha-1 while production of
(Clm) was 12.77 Mg.ha-1. This increase in production reflects the better management achieved by the control
system for applying water in the most suitable times. Also, the ability of the control system to use the average
MC from three points to make the necessary scheduling strategy shared in avoiding deficit or over irrigation
which may result in poor uniformity.
Water productivity of (Aum) was 9.75 kg m-3 while it reached 6.88 kg m-3 for (Clm). Increase in water
productivity was 41.71% of water productivity at (Clm) treatment. (Aum) also led to save 12.63% of water applied
to Clm. Water productivity was directly impacted by the increase in crop productivity in (Aum) in addition to
saving water.
Using automatic control system led to increase energy use efficiency (EUE) if compared to (Clm)
treatment. Energy use efficiency (EUE) for the treatment (Aum) reached 76.09 kg/kW.h while it was 36.02
kg/kW.h for (Clm). Energy use efficiency (EUE) value is mainly related to both productivity and operation time.
(Aum) gave the opportunity to improve energy use efficiency (EUE) by adjusting operation time in addition to
the increase in cucumber productivity.
Table 3 shows the costs of cucumber production and the total profits. Total fixed cost of (Aum) was
higher than the (Clm) because of the costs of the automatic control system. Labour cost was lower for (Aum)
because there was no need for persons to turn the system on and off. Also, the energy cost was lower for
(Aum) because of the more adjusted operation time which was lower than the seasonal operation time of (Clm).
The reduction in energy and labour costs led to reduce the total costs of (Aum) treatment despite the increase
in irrigation network costs generated by the costs of the automatic control system.

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The total profits of (Aum) were greater than the profits of Clm. These results led to increase in B/C ratio
of (Aum) by 24.39% if compared to (Clm) treatment. (Aum) treatment cost is expected to decrease if the control
system manufacturing turned to mass production.
Table 3
Annual costs and benefits/cost ratio of the treatments, US$/ha
Clm Aum
Depreciation 43.90 84.72
Interest 36.22 70.83
Taxes and insurance 9.76 19.08
Total fixed costs 89.88 174.63
Energy 57.02 33.58
Labour 198.70 93.15
Repairs and maintenance 43.90 84.72
Additives 305.03 305.03
Total variable cost 604.66 516.48
Total cost 694.54 691.11
Benefits 3703.30 4584.90
B/C ratio 5.33 6.63

Using the proposed control system led to increase crop productivity, save water, and decrease seasonal
operation time. All these effects were followed by increasing water production (Wp) and energy use efficiency
(EUE). Despite the poor hydraulic performance of the system which was expected to decrease production, the
total productivity with (Aum) reached the limit of cucumber productivity per hectare in Egypt (Zaki M., 1992)
and the world average which is 15 Mg/ha. The decrease in crop production in (Clm) is mainly related to the
poor hydraulic performance and unequal amounts of water applied along laterals. This means that the design
considerations of this control system led to avoid over and deficit irrigation of the plants along the lateral.
Results also clarified that basing on soil and crop data in the proposed control system led to increase water
production (Wp) and helped to reach better scheduling which is in agreement with the studies made by (Dukes
et al. 2007; Elmarzaky et al., 2011; Venkatapur and Nikitha, 2017) on closed-loop control systems. The
proposed control system can be improved to be compatible with renewable energy sources like solar energy
to keep real-time monitoring for the soil moisture content to avoid losing data because of any issues related to
possible electric current absence. Future experiments should include investigating the introduced control
system use with acceptable ranges of hydraulic performance. Also, future work can include choosing the best
distribution for the sensors along laterals and the effect of increasing the number of monitoring sensors.

CONCLUSIONS
Field experiment was carried out to investigate the effect of a closed-loop real-time control system which
was developed by Elnemr M.K., 2017 on cucumber crop production, water productivity, and energy use
efficiency with poor hydraulic performance drip irrigation system. The control system was designed to manage
irrigation system basing on collecting soil moisture data through sensors which were located in each third of
the lateral. The average of the three readings was used as the soil moisture content which will decide the
irrigation needs. The control system will start the pump when the soil moisture content reaches the allowed
depletion of available water. Irrigation process will stop after reaching soil field capacity. The automatic control
management was compared to climatic data-based management. Irrigation management with the control
system led to increase crop production, water productivity, and energy use efficiency compared to the other
management method. Despite the poor hydraulic performance of the irrigation system, the automatic control
management kept the productivity of cucumber at the known limits per unit area.
As a result, there was an increase in water production (Wp), and energy use efficiency (EUE) due to the
saving in water and operation time. Using the control system also led to increase the B/C ratio compared to
(Clm) due to increase in crop production with decreasing both labour and energy costs. It is recommended to
use the introduced control system with drip irrigation systems which show poor hydraulic performance to
reduce negative effects on crop production and to reach more efficient use for both water and energy.

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