ISO 11783 Standard: Procedures for Serial Data Communication between the Implement ECU with the Task Controller

Abstract

The recent growth of the use embedded electronic and remote sensing in agricultural machinery has promoted the application of the Precision Agriculture (PA) management strategy. PA has demanded researches of sensors and communication networks for data acquisition and control in the farm field. The incompatibility between hardware, software and data formats has become a major obstacle. The global trend is to use standardized systems in accordance with ISO 11783 standard (also known as ISOBUS) on devices, or Electronics Control Units (ECU), of the agricultural production. The purpose of this work is to systemize the information necessary of the procedures for communication of the implement ECU with the tractor task management ECU, the needed standardized files and the validation tests of the devices communication via ISO 11873 network. It was established the conceptual connection among the systematized information and embedded devices on agricultural machinery. The embedded devices consist in five ECUs connected in the ISO 11783 network. Four ECUs are located in the tractor: GPS ECU, Task Controller (TC), Virtual Terminal (VT) and Tractor ECU (TECU). The GPS ECU is responsible to the Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) positioning. The TC is responsible to manage the prescription map and to control the implement. The VT is responsible monitor the application. The TECU disposes tractor velocity of a radar sensor. The fifth device located in the implement is Working Set Master (WSM), which is responsible to interpret the commands from the tractors ECUs and integrate the mechanical-hidraulical device to do the implement application. It was presented how to develop the needed standardized files, the capabilities needed of the Implement ECU program, the validation of communication between the Implement ECU with the TC and was prove that the information systematized has facilitated and provided the communication. It is expect, this work may open opportunities for the ISO 11783 standard can be better understood and enlarge the possibility of providing a great number of applications involving the concept of PA in Brazil.