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Satellite Driven Farming Equipment
ravenousbugblatter writes "An article at CNN discusses how Australian scientists are using GPS to automatically drive tractors and other farming equipment on predetermined tracks. The technology is encouraged because it can prevent water loss associated with the repeated compaction of soil from heavy farming equipment."
This could also be a great help to reduce fatigue related accidents on farms. I have friends that are farmers and during harvest times they routinely work 18+ hours driving harvesting machinery. Often a worker falls asleep at the wheel and has caused thousands of dollars in damage, not to mention the potential for human injuries or death. These tractors could keep these routine tasks safer and maybe in the long run cheaper too.
GPS has been used in farming for a decade, and is fantastic for saving $$$ on fertilizers (liquid) and other farming tasks.
I used to work in a farm and I can say that adding altitude can give you a whole new perspective about what's going on in your fields. Over the years, there have been a number of attempts at using images gathered from airplanes and satellites to enhance scouting
These images provided some interesting views, but were never timely enough to be useful for making management decisions. Plus, the equipment was not readily available to make a pass when you needed it made.
The only option growers had for aerial scouting that provided immediate information was to learn to fly themselves. For most, the cost of flying lessons and airplanes meant that wasn't a very practical option.
Now new technology is opening the door for more immediate, more useful aerial information about your crops. And if you just want to fly over your fields to see how they look from above, that's becoming easier and more affordable, too.
After years of promise that satellites would revolutionize crop scouting, recent developments are turning promise into reality.
Aerial photos can be especially useful for mapping fields in remote areas. A group of ranchers and groups interested in resource management in Wyoming have been working together the past five years to gather aerial images of rangeland in areas that are not readily accessible by ground.
It can be used like in WHIPP program, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Lake DeSmet Conservation District are using aerial imagery to map leafy spurge locations in a 54,000-acre area.
Leafy spurge is a perennial noxious weed that's spreading on rangelands. Cattle won't eat it and herbicides provide inconsistent control so they're trying to develop an integrated weed management program.
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
OB Simpson's quote of course. No news story would be complete without one. Kent Brockman. Homer in Space episode.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
I don't, however, know how they're getting accuracy to less than an inch.
They would use a technique called Differential GPS. A GPS unit is placed on a known point and received signals from the same satellites as the GPS unit on the tractor. Both receive the same intentional errors, so the error can be calculated and sent to the tractor so that its coordinates can be fixed.
Note that there are often base stations set up for regions, so the farmer wouldn't have to set up his own. He'd just have to subscribe to such a service to get the corrections.
done
I recently read an article in MIT's Technology Review discussing something similar. It looks like NASA is working on something similar, and for a similar purpose, although different in implementation. Finally, agriculture is getting into advanced new electronics with great ideas backed by government.
The story's not that long. It is funny, though.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
I worked there in 2000 and the best part was the big red button on the front. it was a little odd having my computer space 20 feet from a tractor with gizmos.
At least part of the motivation for this research is that Australia generally has the poorest soils in the world. The rocks and soil are so old here that for the most part, there just aren't many nutrients left, since they've been leeched out over the millennia. Consequently, soil degradation, salinity and erosion are big topics here. Slowly our argicultural industry is realising they need to address these issues (with things like GPS tractors) otherwise there wil be no soil left for them to farm.