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Durable, Shockproof Computing?
trefoil asks: "My friend's father is a farmer who has to tend to his huge wheat fields for most of the day. He is looking for an option to have a full computer system on his tractor, however it bumps and jostles around a lot. He was curious as to what type of options besides pda's does he have, for something that can 'take a beating and keep on ticking'. Specifically what we're looking for is something shockproof, hopefully not to expensive, the less "moving parts" the better. Any ideas out there?" If such a solution does not exist that's exact to the one described here, how close can today's market get to a sturdy computing solution that could handle life on the road...or farm?
- Tractors give off the usual battery power, just like cars, so power isn't much of an issue.
- Tractors don't have suspension, the suspension is put in the seat instead. Unless you suspend the computer it may be subject to some large shocks!! (although a wheat field wouldn't be too bad).
- Most larger tractors and most combines have plenty of room for computers but most smaller tractors definitly don't have the room. Since the poster said the fields are "huge", I'll assume we are talking about larger equipment for the most part.
- Dust shouldn't be too big of an issue provided the tractor is cabbed and you keep the windows closed. If it doesn't have a cab, then you get into other issues like rain. But again, we are talking large fields and large equipment, almost all large equipment have cabs on them.
Computers are increasingly being used in farm equipment now. New tractors almost all have computerized instrument panels, transmissions, etc. Many people add GPS units to thier combines. I've even seen tractors that can totally control themselves without an operator! New farm equipment is very dependant on computer systems.Now as to what the computer is used for, I can't answer you that. I'm guessing he wants it for e-mail, scheduling, those sorts of tasks since the PDA idea was brought up.
I would recommend industrial PCs for this application. They can better take the rough conditions than regular PC equipment. Industrial PCs are usually quite small too which would be nice for use in machines. Get a nice small board with a Disk-on-Chip (solid state) hard drive and a LCD screen (try to keep it out of sunlight!) for the display. I don't think your run of the mill Windows, or even Linux operating systems will be ideal in this environment since the operator will be busy trying to keep an eye on what is going on around him. An application with large fonts, and can be easily controlled (touch-screen maybe?) is a must.
Computers in the tractor is a great idea, I've often thought of doing something like this myself, but it's not as easy as just dropping in a laptop or PC to do the task, it will have to be more specialized.