Cloud-Based Approach for Tracking and Monitoring of Hay Bales in Smart Agriculture

Abstract

A farmer’s work focuses on allocating limited resources to their most important duties, while using contractors for capital intensive works. This is typically the way new technology enters agriculture in Finland also, as contractors have bigger and technologically advanced machinery. In the middle of the 2010’s, use of contractors was still low compared to many other European countries. According to research from the Work Efficiency Institute (TTS), contractor use is increasing steadily (Palva, 2019). Regarding data management, several current large projects aim to harmonize and standardize data handling and storage. A major question surrounds the ownership and management of farm data (VillaHenriksen et al., 2020), the cornerstone for farmers’ participation and cooperation to develop these systems. A project to harmonize data flow between different tractor makes and implementations was launched already in the 1990’s. It is called the ISO 11783 series of standards (marked name ISOBUS) “Tractors and machinery for agriculture and forestry Serial control and communication data network”. The purpose of ISO 11783 standard is to specify the method and format of data transfer between sensors, actuators, control elements, information storage, and display units, whether mounted or part of the tractor, along with any implementations (Backman, 2013). The ISOBUS standard has achieved many of its objectives, but the system is continuously in developmental stages. New Cloud-Based Approach for Tracking and Monitoring of Hay Bales in Smart Agriculture Ilpo Pölönen, Antti Suokannas, & Antti Juntunen