Version | Owner / Editor | Modified date |
1 | Divya Chayanam |
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Introduction
Problem Statement / Opportunity
By enabling hands-free irrigation, this project is an opportunity to add efficiency and intelligence to a key aspect in Alberta agriculture.
Solution
Hands-free irrigation is made possible by automatically detecting when watering is needed and remotely turning on the irrigation system, without requiring any manual input.
Ideal customer group
· This solution is meant for farm owners or managers who have one or more center pivots and one or more sensors installed on their farms. Typically, these are farms that are at least 180 acres.
· Solution is suitable in geographies where access to natural sources of irrigation like rainfall or proximity to waterbodies is less and dependence on an irrigation system is more prevalent.
Implementation
The MVP1 does not include Crop ET curves, elevation data and the calculation of the water deficit model.
The solution will be implemented in the following components and sub-components. The division and sub-division is done from a user perspective:
Module -1 Sensors
As a farmer and Litefarm user, I want to be able to add, view and manage sensors in my farm on the app
Add / Create sensors on map view –
a) Flow to add multiple sensors through the UI: A single point on the map can have an array of sensors, all with same location, but different depths. Sensors can be added only on already created farms.
b) User flow to upload an array or batch of sensors
c) Create sensor attributes in the DB
View sensor details
d) See essential sensor details by clicking on a sensor point on the map: Shows if sensor is active / inactive, soil water potential, label and depths of sensors
Edit sensor details
e) Flow to edit the location, label and depths of a sensor array. It’s not possible to move just one sensor from an array of sensors. Can possibly make use of the create sensor flow and allow editable fields.
Retire sensor details
f) Flow to retire/delete a single or array of sensors
Capture sensor readings
g) Capture sensor readings in database via webhook. Archive / delete readings older than 6 months.
Sub-component / Feature | UI details | Backend requirements | |
1 | Create multiple sensors from UI | Map view > add sensor > choose location > add details | See sensor attributes in the list above |
2 | Upload sensor CSV data from app | Map view > add sensor > upload via CSV | See sensor attributes |
3 | View sensor details | Map view > click on sensor > see details & Edit & delete actions |
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4 | Edit sensor details | Map view > click on sensor > Edit flow > confirm? |
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5 | Delete sensors | Map view > click on sensor > delete flow < confirm? |
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6 | Capture & show sensor readings | Flow TBD - after deciding if it’s necessary to display readings | Capture sensor readings via ES webhook. Plan for optimization in MVP 2 depending on the volume & frequency of data |
7 | Error handling | Unable to fetch data: default error screen and message Unable to perform requested action: error screen and message | TBD |
Module -2 Center Pivots
As a farm manager/technician and Litefarm user, I want to be able to add, view and manage pivots in my farm on the app.
Assumptions:
A farm can have only one pivot. It is assumed that a particular area of the farm is never irrigated by more than one pivot. As a rare scenario, for very large farms, there can be multiple pivots. In such cases, the pivot irrigated area becomes the “field” or “farm” and must be created as such in the Litefarm app.
A pivot-irrigated farm for MVP1 will have one homogenous crop throughout.
Farm must be created first and then only a pivot can be added
Add / Create pivots on map –
a) Add pivot: Create a pivot on the map view and confirm the area covered by the pivot.
b) User flow to upload an array or batch of sensors
c) Create sensor attributes in the DB
View pivot details
d) See essential pivot details by clicking on the pivot on the map: Shows if pivot is active / inactive, last irrigation prescription link (if available), else CTA to create one.
Edit pivot details
TBD - to verify if this is a necessary user action and plan for MVP2
Retire sensor details
f) Delete a pivot TBD - to verify if this is a necessary user action and plan accordingly
Initiation / Generate Irrigation prescriptions
g) Generate prescription to have an additional visibility in either tasks or a different point in the app, apart from the pivot on the map. To generate this, there must be atleast one pivot and one sensor set-up previously.
Irrigation prescriptions - Push & History
h) A newly generated irrigation prescription could show up in the notifications with CTA to confirm or ignore. Push prescription to pivot on confirmation. Delete prescriptions older than 24hours, notifications can remain without CTA
i) Store irrigation prescription files in the app, possibly in a tab in the documents section.
j) View an irrigation plan with zones - An irrigation plan shows the irrigated zones of the field for a single pivot. More detail in the next module.
Module - 3 Layers
Layers are visual representations of data on the same map, usually simultaneously. An example would be satellite view / default / terrain view in Google maps. Currently we show farm location, boundaries in the map. This can be expanded to the following:
View soil layers map
The map would give the user an idea of the type of soil that is present in the farm. A user can look at the map of the farm and see a visual representation of zones / areas categorized by type of soil.
SoilGrids API gives the data on type of soil and other soil data when a lat long is passed. More detail on how the data points are to be stitched together in the next module.
Questions
Can/should users be able to edit an irrigation prescription?
How much of an area is represented by a sensor?
How do a sensor and a pivot understand a field mapping? Is it configured at the beginning?