COMPUTER-CONTROLLED SENSOR CARRIAGE FOR SIMULATED CENTER-PIVOT MOVEMENT

A computer-controlled carriage mechanism and associated software were developed to simulate the movement of a center pivot or linear move ir rigation system. The mechanism, which moves along a track, has the cap ability of moving and positioning a sensor at speeds varying from 0 to 2 m/min. Many sensors can be used. So far, a rain gauge has been used on the mechanism to measure the effect of start-stop sequences of spr inkler movement on application depth. The mechanism can be controlled manually from a computer keyboard or directly from experimental veloci ty data stored on computer disk. Data from the sensor, along with carr iage velocity and elapsed time, are collected and stored in a separate data file for later analysis.