More than 4.6 mln ha in the Russian Federation are irrigated. Their culvert hydraulic structures are part of network structures and are the most widespread. After the crisis of the 1990s, proper maintenance of many reclamation systems was impossible due to a lack of funds. This led to the loss of about half of the water taken from irrigation sources in irrigation canals. The planned increase in the technical level of irrigation systems requires the automation of the operation of both the entire system as a whole and separately located culverts. This will avoid significant losses of water supply for irrigation and prevent water shortages with the insufficient discipline of water users. Means of hydraulic automation of water supply are being installed on small irrigation canals in Russia. A water flow regulating valve is proposed, with no mechanical movinparts, and gates are not involved in the control process. The operation of the structure is based on the injection effect, in which excess water entering the downstream with a decrease in water consumption begins to circulate between the outlet section of the transit pipe and the diffuser at the end section of the valve. Using the methods of measuring hydrodynamics and the theory of jet devices, theoretical dependences were obtained, which make it possible to determine the main hydraulic characteristics of the structure. The design form of the flow part of the regulator has been developed and a physical model has been made. In a mirror hydraulic flume, the operation modes of the water outlet were studied with and without regulation. The actual values of hydraulic parameters were obtained, which confirmed the validity of the use of theoretical dependencies. The discrepancy between the theoretical and experimental results is within the experimental error. It has been proven that it is possible to circulate excess water between the downstream and intermediate pools of the regulator.

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is booming in almost every sector of the economy, especially in the agricultural industry. According to some reports, the agricultural UAV market is expected to increase from USD 2.6 billion in 2020 to USD 9.5 billion in 2030. In this paper a brief overview devoted to the use of UAVs in the Russian State Agrarian University – Moscow Timiryazev Agricultural Academy (RSAU-MTAA), including the results of studying the equipment use effectiveness for automatic driving of tractor equipment when sowing grain crops and planting potatoes. In the course of studying the equipment use effectiveness for automatic driving of tractor equipment, the deviations of the guess row spacing from the standard row spacing provided for by the seeder design were established; in the case of sowing barley using a marker, it was up to 4.3 cm, and in the case of winter wheat it was up to 5 cm. When using the autopilot system, these values were no more than 1.5 and 2.3 cm, respectively, which indicates the high accuracy and efficiency of the automatic driving systems. The autopilot system use provided a deviation of adjacent rows from the straightness when planting potatoes from 2.8 to 3.0 cm. The paper concludes that the use of unmanned robotic systems in agriculture, in conjunction with modern means of receiving and processing information, opens up new opportunities for increasing agriculture efficiency.