Auto-controller for interconnected canal pools of canal system of the sardar sarovar project, Gujarat

An important parameter for performance evaluation of an irrigation system is the ratio of volume of water released from the sources to that actually applied in the field. Generally in the irrigation system, the farmers and the canal operators consultatively plan out the discharges from the off-taking points so as to meet the requirements of various parts of the command area. Requirements of water in various parts of the command area keep on changing as per the type of crops, sawing time, soil types, atmospheric conditions, etc. Therefore, steady state of canal, i.e., operating a canal at a specific discharge is not practicable in real world. Control system as a means of operating a canal essentially has an objective of achieving the steady state of the canal in the shortest time duration. It does so by efficiently working out the required depth of water for a specific discharge. It also involves instantaneous decision making about controlling the gate operations at the control structures in the canal. The paper discusses the philosophy of the auto-controller developed for the interconnected pools of the canal system of the Sardar Sarovar Project, Gujarat, India which has a huge main canal of about 532 km in length and discharge 1133 m³ s⁻¹, a large canal system of about 75,000 km length.