Lateral Irrigator

We were commissioned by our customer in South Australia to program their lateral irrigators (headed for an end user in Sudan) so that the irrigators would track in a perfectly straight line over a distance of 3km.

The project required synchronisation of ControlLogix PLC, PanelView700 and 14 PowerFlex 70 VF Drives on ControlNet. Using linear transducers with fuzzy logic function block control and synchronisation of the VFD driven motors, our engineers were able to achieve near perfect +/- 50mm variation for a 700 metre wide irrigator travelling in a line for over 3km.