Computer-integrated crop production technologies for mechanized precision farming

This paper introduces a new production technology for mechanized precision farming: the computer-integrated crop production(CCP) technology. The CCP technology integrates information acquisition, data networking, data processing, operation planning and automated execution functions to support effective mechanized precision crop production. A CCP system should be capable of three main functions: collecting relevant observable data when it is needed, drawing appropriate actionable parameters from the observed data, and transmitting the actionable parameters for implementation. To illustrate the operational principle and architecture design of a CCP system, this paper explains the key functions developed from various projects at the Mechatronic Systems Laboratory of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In these projects, field operations in mechanized precision crop production, such as automated guidance, master-slave control and online variable-rate application, which performed using some types of mobile agricultural machinery, are essential to integrate the CCP system with the machinery for automatically implementing optimized operations. A brief discussion on the remaining challenges in developing more sophisticated CCP technology is also presented in this paper based on the lessons learned from those research projects.