Abstract
Traditional agriculture is facing several challenges worldwide such as increased population growth, rapid forestry and urbanization, resource scarcity, climate change, environmental pollution, competition among different markets. Hence, farmers need to improve productivity in order to maintain the output level. This study attempted to evaluate the benefits of using Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) positioning in precision agriculture through a series of real measurements carried out when farming cereals. All farming management actions involved in the cereal crop process (raise fallow, plow, sow, fertilize, mow, and harvest) have been done using an automatic guidance system that has reduced costs. A reduction of 20% has been quantified in the fuel, the amount of fertilizer, the labor costs and the hours of work. Consequently, the environmental impact has been also reduced. An inexpensive system consisting of a reference base station near the field and a mobile unit mounted on the test vehicle has been installed in order to increase the benefits in cereal crops. Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) systems including Global Positioning System (GPS), GLONASS, Galileo and Beidou have been used in the analysis. This research serves as a practical guide to implementing a low-cost guidance system to achieve best management practice. Keywords: real-time kinematic, low-cost, positioning, benefits, guidance system, cereal DOI: 10.25165/j.ijabe.20211403.5812 Citation: Tayebi A, Gomez J, Fernández M, de Adana F S, Gutiérrez O. Low-cost experimental application of real-time kinematic positioning for increasing the benefits in cereal crops. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2021; 14(3): 194–199.
Highlights
With the increasingly competitive agriculture, the need to make the management of the activity more efficient means that nowadays farmers have to incorporate different tools of precision agriculture in their daily routine
This study attempted to evaluate the benefits of using Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) positioning in precision agriculture through a series of real measurements carried out when farming cereals
All farming management actions involved in the cereal crop process have been done using an automatic guidance system that has reduced costs
Summary
With the increasingly competitive agriculture, the need to make the management of the activity more efficient means that nowadays farmers have to incorporate different tools of precision agriculture in their daily routine. Precision agriculture is a farming management concept based on satellite positioning data, information technology, remote sensing technology, robotics, etc., with the aim of saving costs, reducing environmental impacts and producing more and better outputs. The evolutions of vehicle guidance, auto-steering and controlled traffic farming systems have been possible thanks to the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). GNSS includes the Global Positioning System (GPS), GLONASS, Galileo, Beidou and other regional systems. In contrast to DGPS, Real-Time Kinematic considers the second transmission frequency of the satellites and offers a positioning accuracy within 10 to 50 mm. This is enough for the real-time control of farm vehicles. Like the other techniques based on GNSS, RTK is independent of the size and geographical characteristics of the field as well as independent of daytime, weather and field activity
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call