Design and Development of a GPS Working Set based on ISOBUS Protocol for Agricultural Machinery in South Korea

Abstract

Agriculture has been continuously evolving especially in terms of mechanization and automation. An important aspect of these is the ECU or electronic control unit which is an embedded system that is responsible for controlling a specific function or subsystem in a vehicle, tractor or implement. There are numerous manufacturers of agricultural machinery in South Korea, but only a few develop electronic control units (ECUs) that are compliant with ISO 11783. This research was carried out to address the important need to develop such an ECU for agricultural machinery in Korea. This study presents the design of a compliant Global Positioning System (GPS) ECU working set for the automation of agricultural equipment that is fully plug-and-play and non-GNSS specific. An STM32F107 ARM 32-bit Cortex M3 was designed as an ECU using IAR Embedded Workbench with a uBlox M8 GNSS for GPS data. It was then connected to a Virtual Terminal (VT), and the exchanged CAN messages were tested using a KVASER PCIEcan HS CAN Analyzer. Experimental and analytical data confirm that the embedded GPS working set system uses the ISOBUS communication protocol when transmitting GPS data required by an agricultural machine. The GPS working set’s applicability to agricultural work is demonstrated, along with compliance to protocols for plug-and-play functionality for manufacturers from various countries, which is an additional convenience for users. The methodology presented could be used when designing new ISO 11783-compliant working sets for other sources of sensor or environmental data.