Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Field Crop Production
Automation
5
Scott A. Shearer and Santosh K. Pitla
CONTENTS
5.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 97
5.2 Historical Trends in Field Machinery............................................................. 98
5.3 Physical Limitations of Field Machinery ....................................................... 98
5.3.1 The Power Dilemma ........................................................................... 98
5.4 Machine Life and Obsolescence................................................................... 100
5.5 Current Developments in Field Machinery Automation .............................. 100
5.5.1 Space-Based Positioning Systems .................................................... 101
5.5.2 Wireless Communications ................................................................ 102
5.5.3 On-Vehicle Communications ............................................................ 104
5.5.4 Data Structures ................................................................................. 105
5.5.5 Automated Guidance ........................................................................ 105
5.5.6 Automated Turns .............................................................................. 108
5.6 Input Metering and Placement Automation.................................................. 108
5.7 Harvest Automation...................................................................................... 111
5.8 Current Trends—Unmanned Field Machinery ............................................ 113
5.9
First-Generation Unmanned Machines ........................................................ 114
5.10 Next Generation of Autonomous Field Machinery....................................... 116
5.10.1 Individual Robot Control Architectures ........................................... 116
5.11 Summary ...................................................................................................... 121
References .............................................................................................................. 122
5.1 INTRODUCTION
The evolution and development of agricultural field machinery has been shaped by
technological development in other sectors of the world's economy (e.g., defense
and transportation). For example, without defense-related concerns over locating
troop movements or guiding ordinates, it is doubtful that the civilian sector alone
would have provided enough justification for space-based radio navigation or Global
Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). Similarly, the transportation sector has con-
tributed significantly to the deployment of microcontrollers in the off-road equip-
ment sectors. Perhaps the single greatest factor in the automation of agricultural field
machinery has been the deployment of microcontrollers in controller area networks
(CAN), thereby enabling integrated control of multiple machine functions.
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