Development of a Precision Farming System for Turkish Farmers

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to explain the information about a precision farming system which has been developed for Turkish farmers. The developed system includes a variable rate controller for centrifugal fertiliser spreaders, an application map software and an autonomous steering system for tractors. The variable rate controller for the centrifugal fertiliser includes stepper motors used to adjust the distributed fertiliser amount. An electronic control system was designed to control stepper motors in addition to a DGPS system, which was used to determine positioning. The application map software was used to provide communication between the variable rate system and the stepper motor, computer and DGPS. In order to develop a variable rate controller, a toothed axle was fitted to the stepper motor. A variable rate controller was developed to combine cereal sowing machines. This system includes step motors for each seed metering unit as well as PIC, PDA and GPS receivers. The software was developed to create an application map and send signals to control units. Furthermore, an automated steering system was developed by a private Turkish company. Preliminary test results of this system were successful. The system is still being tested.