Geospatial ICT infrastructure for agricultural machines and FMIS in planning and operation of precision farming

Project information

Geospatial ICT infrastructure for agricultural machines and FMIS in planning and operation of precision farming

Call: Integrated ICT and automation for sustainable agricultural production

Id: 34800

Acronym: GeoWebAgri

Duration: 
1 March, 2011 to 28 February, 2013

Consortium:
No Partner Contact Country Total
1000€
Funded
1000€
Funder
1 Coord.School of Electrical Engineering
School of Science and Technology
Aalto University
Ilkka SeilonenFinland76.051.0Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
2Professorship for Geodesy and Geoinformatics
Chair of Geodesy and Geoinformatics
Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Rostock University
Ralf BillGermany64.264.2Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture
3Plant production technology
Crop Technology
Plant Production Research
Senior Research Scientist
MTT Agrifood Research Finland
Sirpa ThesslerFinland30.615.3Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
4Department of Engineering
Aarhus School of Engineering
Aarhus University
Claus SørensenDenmark52.952.9Danish AgriFish Agency
Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries
5Plantproduction
Cattle
Web & IT
Knowledge Centre for Agriculture
Jens BligaardDenmark16.916.9Danish AgriFish Agency
Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries
6University Hohenheim - Institute of Agricultural EngineeringRoland GerhardsGermany65.065.0Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture


Summary: 

The overall aim of the GeoWebAgri-project is to analyse and develop an ICT infrastructure for handling geospatial data and knowledge both in agricultural machines and farm management information systems (FMIS) and promote the introduction of this technology in European software and automation products for agriculture. The technology is studied particularly in the context of spatial data infrastructures (SDI) for the planning and operation of precision agriculture in arable farming. This overall objective can be divided into four specific objectives. The first objective is to specify an ICT infrastructure for handling geospatial data both in agricultural machines and FMIS as a continued development of current systems. This specification will be the baseline for subsequent work. The second objective is to confirm the viability of the challenging parts of the specified ICT infrastructure with proof of concept implementations. The third objective is to evaluate the impact of the possible application of the specified ICT infrastructure on farming objectives. A special focus in the evaluation is on reduced environmental effects through the use of precision agriculture in arable farming. The fourth objective is, based on the results of the project, to enhance the knowledge of European software vendors about the applicability and possible benefits of ICT for geospatial applications in agriculture.

Impact: 

Geospatial information plays an important role in precision farming. Current data exchange between different systems at farm level is insufficient for specification of an information structure for precision farming management. GeoWebAgri has proposed to collect the diversified systems into a spatial data infrastructure (SDI) for agricultural machines and use farm management information systems (FMIS) to support its planning and operation in precision agriculture. GeoWebAgri demonstrates the implementation of standard web feature services (WFS) defined by the ISO 19100 series. Novel communication interoperability, web client electronic central unit (ECU) and a commercial FMIS have been established based on real farm data exchange. Agricultural machinery supporting a web client platform can potentially use several services simultaneously. For instance, such machinery platforms can be prepared for several services and when the services are available locally, value is added to the agricultural machine automatically. GeoWebAgri has demonstrated the future perspectives of integrating spatial information by building the FMIS on open geographic information systems (GIS) standards; this has impacted significantly on the ease of implementation of current and future spatial information in precision farming.

Outputs: 
  • An online decision support tool for evaluating an intended field traffic situation for a given soil condition and with given machinery (for farmers and agricultural advisers)
  • An online tool for creating European-wide maps of the wheel load carrying capacity
Topics: 
  • Soil mechanical models and pedotransfer functions
  • Preparation of national databases for interactive use by the online tool
  • Web-programming of the online decision support tool
  • Online wheel load carrying capacity maps of European soils

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