Systems engineering for irrigation systems

Abstract

Gravity fed irrigation systems are essential infrastructure in support of the world's food supply. By supplementing these large scale civil engineering systems with appropriate sensors, actuators and a supervisory control and data acquisition communication infrastructure, systems engineering ideas can be applied to improve their overall utility. This paper reports how systems engineering principles can be used to automate irrigation systems in order to deliver a more sustainable irrigation regime by improving the distribution efficiency and by achieving a near on-demand water supply. Several important open problems in large scale systems engineering are touched upon.