Mobile Internet Services for Online Support of Agricultural Machinery

1. Mobile Internet Services for Online Support of Agricultural Machinery Liisa Pesonen MTT Agrifood Research Finland NORUnetAgro project 10.04.2008

2. NordunetAgro 2006-09 Participants: University of Aarhus, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Dep. of Agroecology and Environment (Leader, prof. IverThysen) Alexandra Institute Ltd. Danish Agricultural Advisory Service Lund Institute of Technology MTT Agrifood Research Finland ProAgria, Finland University of Aarhus, Department of Computer Science Swedish Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering University of Aarhus, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Agricultural Engineering

3. Background • Agricultural processes are diverse of kind • Several production processes and their sub-processes are run parallel most of the time • Actual work in farms consists of parallel and successive tasks • In the Nordic Countries the number of farms has been degreasing and the size of the farms increasing • Fewer workers run larger business and automation is increasingly employed

4. GPS Data collection Service Planning GIS Expert systems Farm Industry Server Realization Production system

5. Background • Demands towards the quality and traceability of production methods and produced raw materials are increasing • Demands are set by governments, processing industry and customers • Demands concern compliance with standards, environment, ethics and health

6. Information management in field work • Information management plays important role in how well farms are able to deal with this all • Task execution in fields with agricultural machinery has a key role in process data acquisition and documentation in plant production • Task execution is carried out following the plan, • sudden changes in plan -> has to follow standards and regulations and help to improve the outcome

7. Information management in field work • Project focus is on technology that enables online support of agricultural machinery • Field machinery is mobile -> data and information transfer between machine and external support source has to be wireless • Internet serves a media to create connections from an individual machine to several support providers, among them other machines.

8. Online Support • Presentation of accomplished work online to driver, drivers of other machines, farm manager, remote service • Presentation may contain location and timing, sensor data from field environment and automation system, as well as of this data processed information of quantity and quality of applied inputs and work • Using this data and integrating it with external data, it is possible to create new supportive information for the machines and drivers • Data analysis and computing may take place according to automated protocols, but also manual inputs and personal advising interventions may be needed due to diverse of the tasks and their content

9. Information management in field work Dispersed calculation • On-board computing • data from the system itself and from external sources • automatic action or driver’s involvement in decision making loop • External computing • data from the system is sent to external computing service unit, supporting information is sent back to system • automatic action or driver’s involvement in decision making loop • In complex decisions both techniques merged

10. Information management in field work • There are two technological approaches chosen and further demonstrated within the project • to internet servers connected wireless local area network • mobile internet • There are several commercially available technical hardware solutions to build physical systems. • The challenge is to program the needed data management system, which covers complex productions chains with interfaces to multiple different applications • Open, preferably harmonized system interfaces are essential in order to built useful data management systems in this environment

11. Jakobsen et al 2008

12. Publish-Subscribe Middlewarefor Online Fleet Management and Precision Agriculture • On the REDS publish-subscribe system based prototype of the middleware was designed and implemented • Designed system allows various applications to communicate and transmit data at a high abstraction level • some parts of the applications are hosted on mobile entities in the neighbourhood • others on a local area network in a building • other on servers somewhere on the Internet • Thomas Jakobsen1), Lars M. Kristensen2),Raphael Dobers2), • Claus Aage Grøn Sørensen3), Iver Thysen3) • Alexandra Institute Ltd • 2) University of Aarhus, Department of Computer Science, • 3) University of Aarhus, Inst. for Jordbrugsproduktion og Miljø

13. Publish-Subscribe Middlewarefor Online Fleet Management and Precision Agriculture • The prototype middleware includes position awareness and position tracking where, e.g., tractors, harvesters, and personal in a farm building can view the position and routes of mobile entities in the fields • The system also allows more complex applications to be built without concern about the low level communication problems related to mobile and hybrid networks

14. Web-based system concept (InfoXT) • Another approach utilizes mobile internet technology where mobile working unit communicates with centred Internet database via Task Controller (TC) (Nikkilä 2007) Raimo Nikkilä 2007

16. Web-based system concept (InfoXT) Raimo Nikkilä 2007

17. Web-based system concept (InfoXT) • TC is connected with work unit’s ECUs and sensors via cables, wireless connections or CAN bus like ISOBUS • TC gives commands to work unit • how to perform the task • records sensor data and drivers notes • prepares document of performed work • calculates assisting information from collected data for the driver Agrix

18. Plan Spraying Web-based system concept (InfoXT) • TC has modem via which it receives information like Task files and weather data or other assisting information from the database via web server and sends document data back to the database • GPRS or 3G connection is used for data transfer

19. XML interface Data transfer XML (e.g.: Isobus-XML AgroXML, FODM, GML) Free format Farm’s own information Markets, adv. organisation, industry Terminal software (browser) Farm MANAGEMENT Authorities, research, other companies, fellows Planning software / Service / Advice / Expert system xDSL … DATABASES Other service providers (e.g weather) … Storing information and calculation GPRS, mobile broadband 0 xGt/s EXECUTION Site-specific data Data acquisition application Intelli-gence Data refining Data acquisition Target in the field Task controller TC Manual, PDA, Tablet PC, GSM Stationary sensor networks

20. Services Data acquisition Services Planning Farm TC FingMIS server TC Internet TC Markets TC Execution Industry Services

21. Information quality • The quality of online support is on focus in the project • Reliability and needed accuracy of sensor origin information in different on-board decision levels is investigated and analysed (Pasi Suomi, MTT/University of Helsinki) • Also the needed type and accuracy of 3D modelling of accomplished work for online support to driver is detected (Jere Kaivosoja, MTT/Helsinki University of Technology) • The results are needed in designing and scaling the structures of practical systems; quality of the sensors and location of the assisting calculation capacity – on-board or behind Internet servers

22. NORDUnetAgro • Developlent and demonstration work on the base of two approaches (2006-07) where concern in: • Heterogenity of comunication technologies • User-friendly system • Reliability and needed accuracy of produced support information • Project continues with research and demonstrative work where here introduced technologies and research is integrated to form more powerful solutions

23. Thanks! NORDUnetAgroproject liisa.pesonen@mtt.fi