Farming in the modern age is a complex mixture of tight margins, growing demand for produce, mAdditionally, computer vision or machine vision technology provides AR devices with the ability to understand positions relative to the world around them. Intel is accelerating its RealSense camera platform with a radically low-powered Movidius computer vision chipset, which provides the ability to track, navigate, map, and recognize both scenes and objects to understand surroundings and navigate accordingly.
Collectively, these two key building blocks allow AR devices to place virtual objects in the real world and then enable the virtual objects to interact with the environment. Where does AR stand now in the future of workplace? Industry observers often point to half-baked demos and AR products that look gimmicky and clunky. That's partly true, but AR's journey from a neo-futurist hobby to an enterprise solution is quickly taking shape. And technical limitations such as small Field-Of-View (FOV) are being countered with more powerful sensors, cameras, and chips.anaging ever-changing subsidies, pricing, changing diets, dwindling natural resources, and keeping up to date with rapid (and dramatic) new developments in technology. On top of all this there is the need to know and observe the latest ecological practices, the issues associated with climate change and decreasing availability of the rural labor force... Who would want to be a farmer?
Though there may be some appeal to the serenity of rural living versus the stresses of city life, it is certainly not the easiest life to choose. Agricultural technology has made huge advances in the last few years, aiding crop and livestock farmers alike. This is helping to make farmers’ working days easier to cope with allowing them to achieve greater economies of scale, get the most out of available land resources, and keep their cattle in tip-top condition all year round.
Crop farmers can take advantage of the latest techniques in smart farming to help boost the levels of productivity that their land yields. Global positioning system (GPS) units allow tractors to be steered accurately, using assisted or intelligent steering mechanisms to make best use of the contours of fields and optimize ploughing routes. Fully automated steering systems allow the farmer to take their hands off the wheel - to check that fertilizer, water or seeds are being delivered as required. These are jobs that, in the future, may well be performed by robots or by self-driving tractors operated remotely.
Quite apart from these highly technical steering systems, when planting, sensors can be used to make sure that planting depths remains consistent. GPS mapping and co-ordinates can be combined with variable rate technology to ensure that absolutely every possible bit of land is seeded or has fertilizer applied, with individual lines of seed drills being lifted automatically when not required, to optimize field dressing.
Industry experts all agree that the Internet of Things (IoT) is set to be a major contributor to smart farming methods of the future. With global population expected to rise to over 9 billion people by 2050, the United Nations says that agricultural production will need to be ramped up by 50% from current levels in order to cope with projected demands for food. Already a staggering one in three people in the world today are affected by malnutrition in some way.
Low-cost, narrowband IoT sensors, used in power saving mode, can be employed to evaluate soil or crop health by supplying data about soil density and fertility, levels of moisture in crops, presence of pests, etc. This means that fertilizer or nutrient application can be targeted much more precisely than before. Data collected over time may subsequently be used as a valuable resource by being built up into geomaps for each individual field. Drones are also being brought into play to supply information about individual fields. Where farmers used to spend a considerable amount of time literally ‘walking the fields’, this can now be achieved remotely by drones, pre-programmed with flight routes, allowing the farmer to get on with other tasks. IoT is likely to also prove invaluable to food traceability — something that is of increasing importance to both farmers and the supermarket chains that they supply.
Crop farmers are not the only ones to benefit from employing IoT technology. Livestock can also be fitted with sensors that indicate if they are about to give birth, or if their eating habits change ( of possible illness). An ear tag worn by a cow can measure the animal’s temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure and send results in real-time to farmer or vet as required. Other devices can also be used to track animals’ health. A leg collar can measure temperature and movement, assisting with fertility management by ensuring that calving in cows occurs at the optimum interval, as well as helping to maximise the levels of milk produced. Real-time analysis of milk drops can determine fat and lactose levels. If levels change, the collar can also indicate that the animal’s health is being compromised in some way.
Whether we are talking crop or livestock farming, all of these technology-based measurements enable farmers to gather together enormous quantities of data, which can be analyzed and used to improve performance from one year to the next, thereby providing an invaluable information resource. These data sets can be used to have a positive impact on the entire food supply chain by predicting changes in farming operations, influencing operational decisions, or leading to completely redesigned business models.
According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD), approximately 80% of farming data collected is currently wasted. Moving forward, however, there are incredible opportunities to use this data to improve a wide range farming practices, and this is what may help ease the pressures that are currently being placed on our agricultural community.
Mirko Bernacchi joined the Italian branch of Mouser Electronics in Assago in 2012 as a Technical Support Specialist. With more than 25 years of experience in electronics, Mirko provides expert technical assistance and support as well as customer service for our Italian office. He worked as a test development engineer at Celestica and Service for Electronic Manufacturing. At IBM he was a Burn-in memory modules test engineer and an Optical transceiver card test engineer, responsible for the installation of new test equipment, production test problem management and supplier interface as well as the introduction of new test routines.