Design and User-Centered Field Evaluation of an Accessible Precision Irrigation Tool and Its Human–Machine Interaction on a Jordanian Farm
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agriengineering-08-00056-v2.pdf
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2.27 MB
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Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
8ae8e402f6fc9b56c6912187a1972ac3
Author(s)
Van de Zande, Georgia D.
Sheline, Carolyn
Pratt, Shane R.
Winter V, Amos G.
Date Issued
February 4, 2026
Journal
AgriEngineering
Publisher
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
Citation
Van de Zande, Georgia D., Carolyn Sheline, Shane R. Pratt, and Amos G. Winter V. 2026. "Design and User-Centered Field Evaluation of an Accessible Precision Irrigation Tool and Its Human–Machine Interaction on a Jordanian Farm" AgriEngineering 8, no. 2: 56.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
This work aims to demonstrate the successful, long-term human use of an automatic scheduling-manual operation (AS-MO) precision irrigation tool by farmers on a medium-scale Jordanian farm. Innovation in low-cost, accessible, and water-efficient irrigation technologies is critical as water resources become scarce, especially on resource-constrained farms in the drought-prone Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Prior work has shown that a proposed AS-MO decision support tool could bridge the gap between fully manual irrigation—a common practice on many MENA farms—and existing precision agriculture solutions, which are often too expensive or complex for medium-scale farmers to adopt. Recent developments have also demonstrated that the scheduling theory behind the proposed AS-MO tool uses up to 44% less water compared to fully manual irrigation. However, a functional design of the AS-MO tool has not been realized nor has it been demonstrated on a farm with farmer users. This work documents the detailed design of an AS-MO tool’s human–machine interaction (HMI) and validates the human execution of the tool in context. Through an 11-week case study conducted on a Jordanian farm, we show that farmers used a functional prototype of the AS-MO tool as intended. The functional tool prototype was designed to deliver a long-term AS-MO user experience to study participants. The prototype monitored local weather conditions, generated water-efficient schedules using an existing scheduling theory, and notified users’ phones when they should manually open or close valves. The irrigation practices of participants using the AS-MO prototype were measured, and participants demonstrated successful use of the tool. Users correctly confirmed 93% of the scheduled events using the tool’s HMI. Despite manual operation, a majority of confirmed irrigation event durations fell within 15% of the automatically scheduled durations; relative to the length of scheduled irrigation event durations, the medians of confirmed and scheduled durations were 102% and 88%, respectively. These results demonstrate the success of the tool’s decision support ability. Feedback from study participants can support the AS-MO tool’s next design iteration and can inform the development of other decision support systems designed for resource-constrained, medium-scale farms. This work presents an important step towards developing a precision irrigation tool that, if adopted at scale, could increase the adoption of water-efficient irrigation practices on resource-constrained farms that are not served by existing technology, improving sustainable agriculture in MENA.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3390/agriengineering8020056
