Volumetric budget based irrigation control

• US 10,582,674 B2
• Filed: 12/12/2018
• Issued: 03/10/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 10/07/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rain Bird Corporation
• Original Assignee: Rain Bird Corporation
• Inventors: Walker, Ryan L., Nickerson, Harvey J., Snider, Blake
• Primary Examiner(s): Menz, Laura M
• Application Number:
  US16/218,202
• Publication Number:
  US 20190110415A1
• Time in Patent Office: 454 Days
• CPC Class Codes: A01G 25/16 Control of watering
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 13/021 in which a variable is automatically adjusted to optimise the performance

Abstract

The present embodiments provide systems, processes and/or methods of controlling irrigation. In some embodiments, methods are provided that receive (4112) water usage information corresponding to a first volumetric water usage at a site location having an irrigation controller (130), wherein the first volumetric water usage corresponds to volumetric water usage from a beginning of a budget period of time to a first time within the budget period of time; determine (4114) automatically whether a volumetric water budget at the site location will be met for the budget period of time based on at least the first volumetric water usage, the volumetric water budget corresponding to a specified volume of water for use during the budget period of time; determine (4116) automatically, in the event the volumetric water budget will not be met, an adjustment to the irrigation by the irrigation controller; and output (4118) signaling to effect the adjustment.

Claims

1. A method of controlling irrigation, the method comprising:

receiving, at a water authority system and corresponding to each of multiple different remote and geographically distributed site locations each having in irrigation system comprising an irrigation controller configured to control one or more valves distributed throughout the respective site location and to implement a respective irrigation schedule stored in local memory of the irrigation controller to control irrigation at the respective site location, water usage information corresponding to a first volumetric water usage at the respective site location, wherein the first volumetric water usage corresponds to volumetric water usage at the respective site location from a beginning of a budget period of time to a first time within the budget period of time;

determining automatically, by the water authority system, whether a volumetric water budget at the respective site location is predicted to be met for the budget period of time based on at least the first volumetric water usage, the volumetric water budget corresponding to a specified volume of water for use at the respective site location during the budget period of time;

determining automatically, by the water authority system in the event the volumetric water budget will not be met, an adjustment to the irrigation to be implemented by the respective irrigation controller, wherein the adjustment comprises a reduction of runtimes of remaining irrigation events scheduled to occur during the budget period of time such that the adjustment substantially spreads a compensation for an amount of water usage that will exceed the volumetric water budget over the remaining irrigation events; and

communicating, from the water authority system, instructions to modify the irrigation schedule wherein the instructions provide changes to be made by the respective irrigation controller to implement modification to the irrigation schedule to control the opening and closing of the one or more valves at the respective site location coupled with the irrigation controller in controlling water released through water delivery devices fluidly coupled with a corresponding one of the one or more valves in controlling irrigation at the irrigation site to effect the adjustment.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the receiving step comprises:

receiving, at the water authority system, the water usage information taken by a water meter at the respective site location and corresponding to the first volumetric water usage at the respective site location having the irrigation controller.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the budget period of time spans multiple irrigation cycles implemented by the irrigation controller at the respective site location.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the first volumetric water usage during the budget period of time comprises an accumulation of volumetric water usage at least from two or more of the multiple irrigation cycles.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining automatically, at the water authority system, a predicted volumetric water usage at the respective site location, the predicted volumetric water usage is based at least on the first volumetric water usage and a second volumetric water usage predicted for a remainder of the budget period of time;

wherein the determining automatically whether the volumetric water budget at the site location is predicted to be met step comprises;

determining automatically whether the volumetric water budget at the respective site location is predicted to be met for the budget period of time based on at least the predicted volumetric water usage.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the step of determining automatically the predicted volumetric water usage comprises:

identifying one or more predicted irrigation events where an irrigation event is an event identified in which irrigation is predicted to be activated; and

predicting irrigation volumetric water usage for each of the one or more identified predicted irrigation events; and

summing the predicted irrigation volumetric water usage for the one or more identified predicted irrigation events.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of identifying the one or more predicted irrigation events comprises:

predicting evapotranspiration (ET) values that correspond to one or more potential irrigation events remaining in the budget period of time; and

determining, for each of the one or more potential irrigation events remaining in the budget period of time and from the predicted ET values corresponding to the one or more potential irrigation events, whether irrigation is to be activated.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

communicating, by the water authority, a notification to a user associated with the respective site location that the irrigation is to be adjusted.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the communicating the notification comprises providing a predicted cost to exceed the water budget.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising causing information corresponding to the adjustment to be displayed on a display that is part of the irrigation controller.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the communicating the notification comprises communicating the notification to a display device associated with the customer that comprises a display, wherein the display device is separate from the irrigation controller.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising communicating, from the water authority system, information relevant to the first volumetric water usage at the site location to a display causing the information relevant to the first volumetric water usage to be displayed.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the instructions providing the changes to implement the modification to the irrigation schedule comprise at least an instruction selected from one or more of the group consisting of:

adjusting an irrigation schedule, replacing the irrigation schedule, applying one or more adjustment factors, adjusting irrigation of one or more irrigation zones, and terminating the irrigation.

14. A system to control irrigation at multiple different irrigation site locations, comprising:

a processor of a water authority;

a transceiver of the water authority coupled with the processor and one or more communication networks, wherein the transceiver is configured to provide communication between the water authority and multiple irrigation controllers each at one of the multiple different site locations that are geographically distributed, and wherein each of the irrigation controllers is configured to control the operation of one or more valves distributed over the respective site location in accordance with an irrigation schedule implemented by the respective irrigation controller; and

a memory of the water authority coupled with the process and storing that stores executable program code, wherein the processor is configured to execute the executable program code to;

receive water usage information corresponding to a first volumetric water usage at a first site location of the multiple site locations having a first irrigation controller of the multiple irrigation controllers, wherein the first volumetric water usage corresponds to volumetric water usage at the first site location from a beginning of a budget period of time to a first time within the budget period of time;

determine automatically whether a volumetric water budget at the first site location is predicted to be met for the budget period of time based on at least the first volumetric water usage, the volumetric water budget corresponding to a specified volume of water for use at the first site location during the budget period of time;

determine automatically, in the event the volumetric water budget will not be met, an adjustment to irrigation be implemented by the first irrigation controller, wherein the adjustment comprises a reduction of runtimes of remaining irrigation events scheduled to occur during the budget period of time such that the adjustment substantially spreads a compensation for an amount of water usage that will exceed the volumetric water budget over the remaining irrigation events; and

communicate instructions to modify the irrigation schedule, wherein the instructions provide changes to be made by the first irrigation controller to implement the modification to the irrigation schedule to control the opening and closing of the one or more valves at the first site location coupled with the first irrigation controller in controlling water released through water delivery devices fluidly coupled with a corresponding one of the one or more valves in controlling irrigation at the first irrigation site to effect the adjustment.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the budget period of time spans multiple irrigation cycles implemented by the first irrigation controller.

16. The system of claim 14 wherein the processor is configured to receive the water usage information, wherein the water usage information is taken by a water meter at the first site location and corresponding to the first volumetric water usage at the first site location having the first irrigation controller.

17. The system of claim 14, wherein the processor is further configured to execute the executable program code to:

determine automatically a predicted volumetric water usage at the first site location, the predicted volumetric water usage is based at least on the first volumetric water usage and a second volumetric water usage predicted for a remainder of the budget period of time;

wherein the processor is further configured to determine automatically whether the volumetric water budget at the first site location is predicted to be met for the budget period of time based on at least the predicted volumetric water usage.

18. The system of claim 14,

wherein the transceiver is configured to communicate a notification to a user associated with the respective site location that the irrigation is to be adjusted.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the transceiver, in communicating the notification, is configured to communicate the notification to a display device associated with the customer that comprises a display, wherein the display device is separate from the irrigation controller.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the notification comprises a predicted cost to exceed the water budget.