A COMPUTERISED METHOD FOR OPTIMISING CROP IRRIGATION BASED ON PREDICTIVE SOIL MOISTURE CONTROL

Abstract

The agricultural sector is currently facing many ecological, technological and economic challenges both globally and within individual countries. Despite significant achievements in crop breeding, overall yields remain unstable and do not show a sustainable positive trend. This is due, among other things, to significant soil erosion and depletion, a declining groundwater table, and unsustainable water use. One of the most potentially effective and appropriate ways to solve this problem is to conduct scientific and applied research to formulate and implement effective measures to modernise agrotechnical crop cultivation practices by creating and using computerised means for predictive soil moisture control with automated decision support. This article aims to substantiate the directions of technical and technological modernisation of agricultural enterprises engaged in growing crops through the development and research of a computerised method for predictive control of soil moisture, taking into account the comprehensive impact of informative and destabilising physical, chemical and biological parameters. The object of research is the processes of computerised predictive processing and analysis of measured data on soil moisture in agricultural areas. The subject of the study is methods of software-based intelligent processing of soil moisture data with consideration of destabilising effects. The main results of the article are as follows: substantiated mathematical and algorithmic provision of the studied method; software implementation of comprehensive predictive data processing on the dynamics of soil’s moisture; substantiated requirements for optimisation of the soil irrigation process in the field conditions, obtained through a computer experiment in the Matlab & Simulink. The article also formulates promising areas of development and research for the further development of the proposed method of computerised soil moisture control during crop cultivation.