Automatic control and real-time monitoring system for earth–rock dam material truck watering

Supplementing sufficient water to dam materials loaded on transportation trucks is the key in obtaining optimal moisture content of these materials, thus ensuring compaction efficiency of earth–rock dam construction. Conventional methods of manual truck watering are labor intensive, cause water wastage, and suffer from imprecise control of the volume of water supplement. We integrated radio frequency identification, global positioning system, geographic information system, personal digital assistant, and general packet radio service cellular network technologies to develop an automatic control and real-time monitoring system for dam material transport truck watering. The developed system automates the control of watering operations according to the volume carried by each truck and the type of dam material loaded. It also monitors continuously the whole process of truck watering. The case study of the NZD Dam project demonstrates the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed system. It not only achieves automatic and high-accuracy truck-and-material-based watering process but also makes possible timely feedback for watering control and improvement, ultimately enhancing the compaction quality of dam materials and realizing better project performance.