Space Navigation in Agriculture

These days people who live in a megapolis, city or town know little about living and working in the countryside. We use modern technologies like cellular phones, Internet, electronic maps in cars, GPRS and take them as necessary and customary elements of everyday urban existence.

Whereas such innovations are being widely introduced in the countryside, namely in agriculture. In general, farming can be divided into four major stages: tillage, seeding, fertilizing and harvesting. All of them are performed by humans who might get tired, fall asleep or miss something. Such factors lead to the so called gaps and overlaps, excess expenditure of means (fuel, lubricants, grain, fertilizer) and thus to decrease of productivity. Besides, for operative and correct decision-making in agriculture a farmer needs exact information on environment, weather and crops conditions.

To make agriculture more effective, it is possible to involve information technologies which served exclusively space sphere before.

How It Works

The idea of outer controlling in agriculture no longer seems unreal; it has become a common practice in Europe and USA to use navigation in the field while working with wide-leveled equipment. Imagine an operator in the tractor programming a pass to the end of the field and then opening morning newspaper and drinking coffee, because he doesn’t have to control a thing. Of course, it’s an exaggeration, but in each joke there’s a portion of truth.

Two main ways to use space information technologies go as follows.

First, a grower may resort to space-based observing system and make pictures of the soil during preparation for sowing, vegetation, maturing and harvesting. It allows estimating germination of winter crops, notice indications of drought, formation and growth of gullies, soil erosion, salinization and water logging.

Together with this, all extreme situations - fire, inundation, accidents – are visible and thus to some extent controllable. If weather conditions do not allow receiving space pictures of high quality, observation balloons and the motor-hang-gliders equipped by a digital photo and the video equipment will continue to conduct monitoring. Data about equipment condition, warehouses, personnel all other information necessary are also introduced into system. The decisions accepted after analyzing the information, are kept in a database, and their use is put on the automatic control.

Second, a farmer may use exact satellite navigation: in general the equipment includes a receiver on the tractor (or combine or other equipment, depending on the time of the year and the process), a display in the cabin and a mobile processor linking the receiver and the monitor. The operator gets a signal from a satellite and writes down data about soil, colters, corn concentration, results of fertilizing – everything that will be useful in planning next season’s technology, work, inputs and in the long run profit. For example, while harvesting all information about crop capacity is being written down to the memory map; when cultivating and seeding the operator will use this data to use the exact amount of grain and fertilizers needed. The operator feels more comfortable and gets less tired; he has an opportunity to drive basing more on the indications of the monitor than on external signals. As a result, quality and speed of works increase.

Parallel Tracking Devices installed on the equipment provide connection with satellites and determine coordinates; they are called GPS-receivers (Global Positioning Systems) and serve as base for parallel tracking and auto track for operating tractors and combines. When parallel tracking is used, each next pass is programmed to go in parallels with the previous one. With such system an operator can make straight and curve parallels, circular and spiral rows. If there’s an obstacle in the field (a bush or pillar), the device will suspend parallel tracking, drive it around and then continue paralleling the row. You may make the task more complicated and set the zones of U-turns on the field edges: the device will estimate the best trajectory of the turn and will direct the operator for the time and place of turning the wheel.

The operator only has to follow the indications on the monitor in the cabin and watch out for stones and other obstacles in the field. Auto track System Unlike parallel system which presupposes active participation of the operator in the driving process, auto track allows systematizing the whole operation.

There are two types of auto track: a fully automatic system that requires no interference of the operator (at demonstration testing the operator may get out of the cabin while the tractor keeps on following the planned line), or auxiliary management system (maneuvering device). With the latter the operator has to partially control the tractor and manage the turns at the end of the pass. Exact navigation systems – operator driven and fully automatisized – can be divided into subclasses on the principle of accuracy.

To achieve better results a former may resort to differential service; with its help it is possible to follow the same technological rut and sow in the same rows every year. Such accuracy is necessary when vegetables and beet are sown. Economics Exact satellite navigation excludes “the human factor” and thus helps to lower the production cost due to reduce of gaps and overlaps. On average, when seeding with hand operation overlapping of neighboring rows may come up to 0,5 meters, which constitutes 3% of arable land. If a farm sows 10 thousand hectares it will turn out, that at least 300 of them are sown twice. The price of excess expenditure, including amortization of the equipment and the salary in this case reaches $100-150/hectares.

Navigation allows using facilities efficiently, reducing terms of carrying out the works and employing equipment 24/7; it all leads to 15% increase in labor productivity of machine operators. At farms that cultivate more than 10 thousand hectares, auto track will pay for itself in a year; parallel tracking – in a season at even smaller areas. That is why more and more farmers include the cost of exact satellite navigation in their budget: they understand that innovation is cost-effective.