Development of field information collection system based on embedded COM-GIS and pocketPC for precision agriculture

It is the key step for implementing precision agriculture to collect geo-referenced variable information from field. The process of developing a kind of field information collecting system based on PocketPC and DGPS or portable GPS was expounded. By using Microsoft eMbedded Visual C++ 3.0 and integrating embedded GIS development kit, this system realizes the integration of GPS and GIS, which can be used to collect multi-source field dynamic information with accurate position information such as field feature distribution and other spatial variable data that affect crop production. Some main function components such as GPS communication and data phrasing module, basic embedded GIS function module and field data collection function module made up of this system. This system supports GPS serial communication and position data processing, realizes field vector data display, map operation and data query function. Moreover, this article introduces the structure of Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects for Windows CE (ADOCE), and provides the method for accessing Pocket Access database by using ADOCE. The embedded field information collection system proves that the above method is successful to manage GPS spatial position data and attribute data.