Canal Watch: Track Water Flow in Real-Time with the Dragino LDDS75 Ultrasonic Sensor

Hey guys. Nothing says 'advanced precision agriculture' quite like a grower driving a dusty truck down a canal road at 4:00 AM, flashlight in hand, trying to see if the water level in the main irrigation ditch has dropped two inches. (Personally, I’d rather be in bed listening to Nickelback's greatest hits, and that is saying something.)

Irrigating without tracking canal level is like leaving a garden hose running in your yard while you go on vacation. You're either going to dry out your lawn or flood your basement. It's awesome to watch, until the water bill or a crop wash-out bill arrives.

To solve this, we mount a Dragino LDDS75 ultrasonic sensor right over the canal. It sends real-time water levels directly to your phone. Cool? Yes, and it saves you hours of daily driving.

[Queue dramatic pause]

Non-Contact Ultrasonic Telemetry

The setup is exceptionally sweet because the sensor never touches the water. That means no weeds, no algae, and no silt interfering with the reading. We mount the Dragino LDDS75 Ultrasonic Distance Sensor directly over the canal channel on a simple metal bracket.

The LDDS75 shoots high-frequency sound waves down to the water surface and calculates distance based on the echo bounce time. The sensor operates on a high-capacity Li-SOCI2 battery, sending readings over LoRaWAN every 15 minutes. It can run for up to 10 years without a battery change, making it a set-and-forget solution.

Our Simply Mobility software decodes the distance, subtracts it from your bridge height, and displays the exact water level. If a canal gate gets clogged or a pump fails, you get an instant SMS warning. No worries about midnight irrigation surprises ever again.

Get Real-Time Canal Tracking

Stop checking ditches in the dark. View our canal tracking hardware and custom dashboards on the Canal Water Level Solution page. Let's make your farm simply connected.