IoT and radio telemetry based wireless engine control and real-time position tracking system for an agricultural tractor

Abstract

AbstractInternet of Things (IoT) has presented a new scope in the field of Precision Agriculture. With the application of cloud computing and WiFi-based long-distance network in IoT, it is possible to connect the farmers of rural areas effectively and harness the benefit of its advancement. In the present research work, an IoT-based scalable network architecture has been designed for two capabilities 1. For starting and stopping the tractor engine from a remote location and 2. For real-time tracking of the position and monitoring the engine status on a developed website. The developed system consists of the on-board unit (OBU), web server, and google map-based web application. The OBU consists of the Engine Control Sub Unit (ECSU) along with a GPS tracking sub unit for presenting real-time information on the developed web application. The ECSU consists of an RF-based wireless transmitting and receiving system to start and stop the remotely situated tractor engine. As the tractor engine starts it automatically powers up the GPS device for acquiring real-time information i.e. Longitude, Latitude, Time, speed, and Date from satellites, and sends it to the OBU. The Raspberry Pi-3 which has been used as the central processing unit in OBU, gathers both position and engine information and processes it after that sends it to the webserver, where these data are stored in the database of the web server and can be retrieved as a request for position browsing on the map. Finally, a web application was created using Python, language and also embedded with Google Map to retrieve and display real-time information. The developed system enables tractor owners to monitor the real-time position and status of the engine of their targeted tractor on Google Map. The developed system was found to be very simple and can be used by skilled farmers as well.