Optimization of sprinkler irrigation scheduling scenarios for reducing irrigation energy consumption

In recent years, traditional sprinkler irrigation scheduling scenarios have no longer been applicable to modern agriculture because of the increase in energy prices and the rapid development of smart agriculture. This paper proposes a new irrigation scheduling scenario in which a sprinkler is used as the minimum optimization unit for sectoring design. The main challenge of the proposed approach lies in obtaining the most energy-efficient sectoring and pump operating frequencies, and the high complexity of the optimization problem requires considerable computational effort. To compare the irrigation performance before and after optimization, seven scheduling scenarios are established to analyse the performance of the unified control method, branch scheduling method and sprinkler scheduling method. Through numerical calculations and experimental verification, it was found that sprinkler scheduling can not only meet the pressure requirements of sprinklers without using pressure-regulating valves but also minimize energy consumption. Compared with optimal branch pipe scheduling, optimal sprinkler scheduling can reduce the sprinkler pressure variance from 792 to 180 kPa2 and reduce the irrigation cost by approximately 18%. In addition, by analysing the uniformity coefficient and distribution uniformity under different scenarios, it was found that sprinkler scheduling optimization does not substantially improve irrigation uniformity. Ces dernieres annees, les scenarios traditionnels de planification de l'irrigation par aspersion n'ont plus ete applicables a l'agriculture moderne en raison de la hausse des prix de l'energie et du developpement rapide de l'agriculture intelligente. Cet article propose un nouveau scenario de planification de l'irrigation dans lequel un asperseur est utilise comme unite d'optimisation minimale pour la conception de la section. Le principal defi de l'approche proposee reside dans l'obtention des frequences de sectorisation et de fonctionnement des pompes les plus efficaces sur le plan d'energie, et la grande complexite du probleme d'optimisation exigent un effort de calcul considerable. Afin de comparer les performances de l'irrigation avant et apres l'optimisation, sept scenarios de planification sont etablis pour analyser les performances de la methode de controle unifiee, de la methode de planification des tuyaux et de la methode de planification des asperseurs. Grace aux calculs numeriques et a la verification experimentale, il a ete constate que la planification des asperseurs peut non seulement repondre aux exigences de pression des asperseurs sans utiliser des robinets de reglage de pression, mais aussi minimiser la consommation d'energie. Par rapport a la planification optimale des tuyaux primaires, la planification optimale des asperseurs peut reduire la variation de pression des asperseurs de 792 k Pa2 a 180 kPa2 et reduire les couts d'irrigation d'environ 18%. En outre, en analysant le coefficient d'uniformite et l'uniformite de distribution selon differents scenarios, il a ete constate que l'optimisation de la planification des asperseurs n'ameliore pas considerablement l'uniformite d'irrigation.