The first of Rubicon Water’s new SlipMeters™ has been installed at Oakdale Irrigation District in California.
Oakdale is installing solar-powered SlipMeters™ as part of their rollout of Rubicon’s Total Channel Control on its key canals. Total Chanel Control is the world’s first end-to-end irrigation canal automation solution.
The SlipMeter™ is a turnout device that both measures and controls the flow of water from irrigation canals onto farms.
By integrating flow measurement and control in one device, the SlipMeter™ is a cost effective alternative to separate component solutions.
In addition, its compact one piece design makes it simple to retrofit to a canal headwall in place of existing valves and slide doors. Manually-actuated turnout valves can simply be removed and replaced with the SlipMeter™ – minimizing civil infrastructure costs.
The SlipMeter™ features Sonaray acoustic array flow measurement technology, which Rubicon developed to provide accurate and reliable flow measurement under the harsh conditions experienced in the irrigation industry.
A development of ultrasonic flow measurement, Sonaray acoustic array flow measurement is a new innovation developed by Rubicon. It employs concepts found in medical imaging in which an array of acoustic transducers is used to provide a three-dimensional image of a medium.
The SlipMeter™ uses thirty two sensors across eight planes to provide a three-dimensional reconstruction of the velocity profile within the meter, enabling accurate flow measurement even in the presence of severe flow disturbances.
This technology enables measurement of very low velocities, meaning that both high and low flows can be accurately measured in a single meter.
Additional features of the technology include comprehensive error detection, multiple redundancy and high speed sampling capability.
The SlipMeter™ was developed and tested in Rubicon’s hydraulic flow laboratory, which simulates the unique operating conditions experienced in irrigation canals. It has also been independently tested by Australia’s New South Wales state government in their Hydraulics Laboratory under a wide range of operating conditions, ensuring compliance with all major international standards, and demonstrating flow measurement accuracies better than +-2.5%.
