A decision support model for travelling gun irrigation machines

A computer model, TRAVGUN, was developed to simulate the irrigation applications by travelling gun machines under different wind conditions. A novel approach to calibration of the model was introduced to give both the sprinkler pattern (radial leg) and the six wind parameters of the empirical sprinkler irrigation model, from simple field measurements of applied depths along transects perpendicular to the travel direction of the machine. Once calibrated, TRAVGUN can be used to investigate the sprinkler patterns and transects under other wind conditions. When seasonal wind information is available the user can simulate the field application while changing various operating parameters such as the lane spacing and sector angle to identify the optimum values for those parameters.