The Goat. Precision Agriculture in the Citrus Industry

Transcription

1 The Goat Precision Agriculture in the Citrus Industry

2 Outline Goat System GPS Background Information System Configuration Citrus Harvesting Goat Application

3 The Goat A Simple, Easy to Use, Data Collection System Purpose to Establish Yields Within Citrus Groves Useable by Typical Citrus Harvest Personnel Survive Environment GPS at the Heart of the System

4 The Goat Self Contained System Within a 4 X6 X3 box Included, GPS, LCD Display, Push Button, Data Port Mounted to Harvesting Trucks Called Goats Users Pushed Button Whenever They Dumped a Tub of Oranges Into the Truck Data Would Later be Retrieved, Post Processed and Analyzed To Understand the Goat One Must Understand GPS and How to Work with GPS

5 GPS Global Positioning System Provides Much Useful Information Location Information Date/Time Velocity Heading Elevation Navigation Etc.

6 GPS Function/Data Receives Signals from Multiple Satellites Known Satellite Locations and Transmit Times along with Arrival Times can be used to Solve for Location. Most Other GPS Data are Based on Computations Involving Location GPS Information Provided In Predefined Packets, Usually at 1 Second Intervals

7 GPS Demonstration

8 Background Information Had begun design of a GPS based camera prior to knowing about Goat application GPS based camera would integrate Camera GPS Inclinometer Compass PDA

9 Background Information System would be used to document where camera was, where it was pointing and time when image was taken Many applications PDA would control system and would need to interface to Camera, GPS, Compass and Inclinometer all with serial interfaces PDA needed to interface to many devices simultaneously PDA had only 1 serial interface I had an Idea!

10 System Configuration Designed Single Board Computer Substantial I/O capability 5 serial ports Digital I/O Analog to Digital Conversions Digital to Analog Conversions Substantial Memory Capacity RAM ROM Later Versions also used Flash ROM

11 System Configuration Optimized for Data Acquisition and Tracking Applications Bios Operating System Programming Language (Basic) Application program

12 Goat Application Citrus Yield Citrus growers wanted to know the yield as a function of location so that they could better manage their groves Developed device to document the location where oranges were picked Generate GIS plots showing yield as a function of location throughout grove

13 Citrus Yield Background Citrus groves generally consist of long, parallel rows of trees Citrus is hand picked and placed into nearby tubs. Custom built trucks, called goats, are used to collect citrus from tubs When full, the goat is driven to the end of the row of trees where it then dumps the load of citrus into a semi trailer

14 Citrus Yield Developed Data Collector Computer GPS LCD Display Push Button Control Port Data Transfer System Laptop Apple Newton Later Designs used Removable Flash

15 Goat System Design System Powers Up and Displays GPS Status on LCD Once Position is Established Display Shows System Status Time Of Day Number of Tubs Today Number of Tubs In Memory Amount of Memory Remaining

16 Goat System Design Each Position Required 56 Bytes Space for about 2000 (128K) or 6500 (512K) data points a given truck might harvest 3000 tubs in a season Data Transferred out of Goat via PC, PDA or Data Key

17 Goat System Details/Challenges Keybounce a Problem When Key was Pressed, Goat Would Wait for Next Position Fix and then Store Data Data Transfer a Constant Headache Waterproof boxes aren t always waterproof

18 Citrus Yield Data Collector

19 Citrus Yield Process Tub pickup sites were recorded in the field Data returned to office Post processing of data enhanced accuracy from 100 m to 2-3 m. Data were analyzed to establish yields Plots generated and provided to customer

20 Tub Pickup Locations

21 Citrus Yield

22

23 Summary Simple System Used to Log Tub Pickup Locations Data Post Processed and Distributions Determined to Estimate Yield Resulted in Better Grove Management

24 Questions

25 More Accurate Citrus Yield Worked with Lake Alfred Research Center to devise a scheme to weigh oranges Used Analog to Digital converters to input data from transducers that weighed truck bed after each tub was loaded Compensated for uneven filling of tubs

26 More Accurate Citrus Yield Lake Alfred Design

27 More Accurate Citrus Yield Results

28 Agriculture High Value Fruit Documentation Organically Grown Fruit can be sold for higher prices More valuable still if the fruit can be traced back to the Organic Groves Developed application to follow citrus from groves to processing plant

29 High Value Fruit Documentation Process Recorded Location (Organically Grown Area) and Time Tub was loaded onto Goat (Pickup) Recorded Location, Time and Trailer ID when Goat was unloaded onto Semi-Trailer (Dump) Semi-Trailer would contain only Organically Grown Fruit and would be handled separately from non-organically grown loads A documentation trail could be provided to verify that the fruit was organically grown

30 High Value Fruit Documentation System Required more sophisticated equipment, application and users LCD and Numeric Keypad Menu Driven Application Fully User Programmable

31 Agriculture Worker Production Logging Workers paid by the number of tubs of citrus picked Data acquisition system was enhanced to add a worker ID to each tub Kept running total of tubs associated with each worker

32 Agriculture Exotic Plant Monitoring South Florida Water Management District wanted to document the encroachment of exotic plants on native plants in south Florida Particular interest in the Everglades Wanted to monitor the progress over time They had done an initial observation but process/equipment was poor

33 Exotic Plant Monitoring Process Collect data showing type, location and density of exotic species Fly an airplane at low altitude back and forth across the southern Florida peninsula Make visual observations of exotic species Record location, side, primary and secondary species, density, etc. every 8 seconds Collect all data and generate maps showing location, type, density, etc. Monitor progress every 2 years and compare to previous years

34 Exotic Plant Monitoring System Used GPS to provide location information Used Apple Newton (an early PDA) to provide user interface Created application that provided easy data entry, timing and logging Created support applications

35 Agriculture Documentation and Eradication SFWMD applies chemicals to control undesirable plants Needed to document applications and inform public as necessary Developed application to document location, type of plant, chemical type, application rate, etc.