Mechatronic systems, communication, and control in precision agriculture

Site specific agriculture requires the application of field machinery capable of precise, repeatable operations based on models of systems processes. Such equipment requires a host of high-precision sensors and actuators. In the mechatronic design process outlined, the efficiency of the design process and the performance of the mechanisms can be improved considerably or even be optimized through concurrent, integrated development of the mechanisms, control systems, and advanced information systems. Such advanced sensing systems with modern feedback controllers can generate significant demands for data processing and require substantial communications bandwidth. Standardized agricultural bus systems form the backbone for the high-variability and high-bandwidth data streams. In this article, three example mechatronic designs of mobile agricultural machinery are discussed, and the requisite communication system for these machines is presented.