2011 Second International Conference on Digital Manufacturing & Automation

Design and Development Control System for Deep-Fertilization Variable Liquid Fertilizer Applicator
Chunling Lang1, Jinwu Wang1 Yeqiong Shi2, Xiaohuan Xi3 1 Northeast Agricultural University, College of Engineering Harbin, 150030, China E-mail:langchun_@163.com 2 Department of Computer Science, Harbin Normal University,Harbin, 150301, China 3 Shantui Construction Machinery Co. Ltd, Jining, 272073, China
AbstractIn order to improve liquid fertilizer efficiency, liquid variable fertilizing control system was designed with two working modes: a manual control and an automatic control mode. Taking the S3C44B0X microprocessor of ARM7 series as the core device, according to the fertilizing amount of the current location, the system was able to combined together for the machine speed and access to data, and the fertilizing amount from digital quantity to the flow of liquid output was transformed. Flow Sensor was taken, a closed-loop feedback regulation to control the opening of electrical actuators was formed, adjusted valve opening to compete the variable fertilization. The test results in the field showed that the relative error of the variable fertilizing amount was less than 5%, When the fertilizing amount was 245-294kg/hm2, the system can realize the requirements of variable fertilizing. Keywords-Precision Agriculture; Liquid Variable Rate Fertilize; ARM; Closed-loop Feedback System

ARM processor, real-time signal acquisition and variable executing agency (Figure 1). II.
CONTROL SYSTEMS HARDWARE AND RELATED CIRCUIT DESIGN

GPS Speed sensor On-board computer ARM Driving circuit Electric control valve Flow sensor Spray fertilizer needle
Figure 1. The hardware component of the system

Liquid fertilizer box Relief valve Main valve Pressure sensor Hydraulic pump

I.

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, with the worsening ecological environment, people paid more and more attention to variable rate fertilization technology [3,12]. Liquid fertilizer production has a lot of advantages. For example: low cost, easy absorption, high efficacy, supplying high production and the way was quick, reduce fertilizer cost and so on, and at the same time, variable fertilization technology could also join the soil microelement according to the soil testing fertilization scheme in the process, solve the problem of lack of trace elements in plants[3]. Because of the liquid fertilizer these advantages, liquid fertilizer has been widely applied. Variable fertilization technology about precision agriculture was made up of soil and crop nutrition data realtime data acquisition, decision analysis system, variable control fertilization mechanical equipment and variable control technology, etc[3]. Application of variable fertilization technology is to choose the most appropriate way to fertilize reasonably, basing on understanding crop growth according to the soil physicochemical properties, It can reduce the pollution of the environment which has caused by excessive fertilizer and raise crop yield and also reduce costs[3,12]. The control system is for the liquid variable fertilizer that meets the science requirements and has automatic control functions. The control system for Liquid variable rate fertilizer application is made up of the

The design of an automatic and manual work mode, the differences of these two kinds of modes are the ways of input, in manual mode the user import the quantity of fertilizer to the control system, and in automatic control mode, the Global Positioning System positioning system is mainly to provide real-time field location information machinery. A satellite signal which the Global Positioning System receiver will be sent to on-board computer through Universal Serial Bud, the computer tells the current position according to the Global Positioning System positioning information. And the computer will gain the quantity of the current position fertilizer with storage of Geographic Information System, the quantity of the current position fertilizer is input the automatic control circuits by the Universal Serial Bud, calculates the current flow, after driving circuit controls change the degrees of electric control valve. At the same time, the system detects whether the flow is at the default values through the flow sensor, if
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978-0-7695-4455-7/11 $26.00 2011 IEEE DOI 10.1109/ICDMA.2011.97

not achieving the default values, can adjust automatic control circuit through flow sensor feedback, basing on their corresponding soil condition according to the position of the fertilizer on automatic variables. A. The ARM processor The systems core is S3C44B0X microprocessor of ARM7 series, completes signal acquisition and processing of the position, velocity, and injection fertilizer quantity of the spraying fertilizer needle, comparing calculation of the feedback signal, and the control signal output. The extended periphery circuit of the ARM processor is: UART1 interface which receives GPS, UART0 and USB of the realization of reading and writing a program or data, LCD expansion slot connecting the LCD, the audio (IIS) expansion slot of the control signal output[8,15]. B. Real-time signal acquisition 1) Location signal acquisition The system adopts the production of US Trimble company AgGPS132 receiver to realize DGPS. The positioning accuracy is the Ya meter class, the working voltage is 12VDC, output data format is NMEA for 0183. The DGPS receiver output is RS232 , while the ARM processor only receives and treats TTL signals, so choosing MAX3232 transition chip will change the RS232 signals into the TTL signals which the ARM processor can receive[8]. 2) Sensor signal acquisition According to the characteristics of the system, flow signal will be collected by vortex flow sensor. With flow sensor from five rings factory in Tianjin Hedong district production, the working voltage is +12 VDC[15], output amplitude is about 10V square-wave pulse signal. Speed sensor is LM18 300NA - type inductive proximity switch production by Qianwei machinery factory, its main performance parameters: working voltage is 6 ~ 36 VDC, output amplitude is about 10 V square-wave pulse signal. Because of the ARM processor's I/O port to receive only amplitude is 3.3 V voltage signal, you can use TLP521 photoelectric isolation chip to transform the detection signal of sensor .The transformed signal detection will be sent to EXINT2 and EXINT3 interface of S3C44B0X, then read by the ARM processor[15]. Converting circuit is shown in figure 2. 3) variable final controlling element Variable final controlling element is the HL2X type Electric control valve by Beijing HaiLin actuator automatic equipment Co., LTD.[15], the working voltage of electric control valve is 24 VAC, receiving 0 ~ 10V or 4-~ 20 mA of the analog signal control. Because of the ARM processor's I/O port only output digital signal 3.3 V, while the power supply voltage DAC0832 requirement is 5V, so adopts 74LVCH162245 chip to transform DAC0832 of S3C44B0X which needs to be used in the lead leg level[8]. By DAC0832 and computation amplifier circuit realized digital-to-analog and amplification, serial digital control signal in the 3 ~ 5 interface in IIS expansion slot will be

converted 0 ~ 10 V analog signals, realize electric control valves. This part of the circuit diagram figure 3 shows:

Figure 2. the matching circuits of the flow sensor

Figure 3. Electric control valve interface circuit diagram

III.

SYSTEM SOFTWARE DESIGN

A. The modular design of main program Development and design of deep-type liquid fertilization software is in UCOS - operating system environment with C language [8,11,15]. At first entering the main procedure after the system reset, in the main procedure the system proceeds self-check and initialization, carries on the menu, selects work mode, judges the symbol of a program to finish the different the program called. During this period, if the controller receives the Global Positioning System positioning information, will produce serial interrupt, gain the flow of data with speed of a motor vehicle and fertilizer prescription maps information after operation, and enter ARM controller through a serial port. Main processes as shown in figure 4. B. variable executing agency modules design The key of this part is real-time control the valve opening degree so as to realize the control of flow. Working process: initialization of system bottom, allocation modules corresponding address space, the system outputs control

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signal to reset the valve controller, then gains external interrupt signals in the timer interrupt program[8]. And the external interrupt signals and flow signals coupling is to regulate valve opening degree, Then the system also will test flow sensor signals through the interrupt controller 2, through comparison between the deviation to regulating valves, balance stable flow. Program process is as shown in figure 5.
Start

{ Speedvehicle = Ipulsenum / (icurrentindex100 + 1) * 0.1) / 34.8; Frirst0.1 SEC = logicfalse, } Else / / first 0.1 S speed { Speedvehicle = ipulsenum / 10/34.8 }

Initialization
Initialization Working mode Automatic GPS work properly Y GPS and GIS Manual

Open ENT3 external interruption, open timer interrupt 0, give an initial value Regular time N

N Flow input

Y Close interruption, read interruption 3,input the flow, calculate valve opening K Open ENT2 external interruption, open timer interrupt 0 Regular time N

Recognizing position data query Computing speed and flow data Flow control strategy N End mark

Calculate output

Y Close interruption, read ENT2 l Vel<k? Vel<=k? Parameters adjustment Call control pulse subroutine
Figure 5. Subroutines flowchart

Y Close valve, return the electric interface

Figure 4. Electric control valve interface circuit diagram

The process of acquisition speed and flow data is as follows: using the timer 0 timing, sampling interval are 100ms. Setting external interruption 2 records the flow shift pulses and external interruption 3 records the speed shift pulses. Closing surplus interrupt source of the ARM Main flow-process diagram processor before operation to ensure the timer 0, external interruption 2 and 3 execution procedures are not interrupted. Starting the timer 0 and external interruption 2 and 3, The timer 0 starts the timer, and at the same time external interruption 2, 3 start recording shift pulses. After 100ms, the timer 0, external interruption 2 and 3 are off, then the ARM processor reads the data derived from external interruption 2 and 3, These digital input through computer the flow and speed data output into processed. Regularly interrupted subroutines as follows: Void_irq Timer0 (void) { Ipulsenum = 0; Ipulsenum + = icountchesu; } If first0.1 (s) / / current first 0.1 s speed

IV.

TESTING AND ANALYSIS FOR CONTROL SYSTEM

In order to verify the feasibility and reliability of the system, this system has been related experiments. The fertilizer applicator is the deep-fertilization liquid fertilizer applicator that Northeastern Agriculture University developed. It is the model FY-140 [5]. Installing this variable control system to finish variable fertilization, Spray fertilizer needle is adjusted respectively for 70cm by ridge distance, 140cm breadth of machinery [5]. The data of longitude and latitude and setting of fertilizer[11]cited the Development of the Variable Fertilizing Control Software Development of the Variable Fertilizing Control Software Based on GPS and Soil Nutrient Map. Through the control procedures, the measuring of fertilizer is gained. So we can get the relative error of fertilizer. Fertilizing results are shown in table 1. It can be seen from table 1 that the maximum of its relative error is 4.9%, the minimum of its relative error is 2.9%, when the fertilizing amount ranges from 245 kg/hm2 to

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294 kg/hm2. The greatest blame should be placed on factors that the hysteresis characteristic of the electric control valve. Because the hysteresis characteristic is unavoidable, the control precision and efficiency is enhanced in two ways. Firstly , hardware :Using the higher performance of electric control valve , shortening the response time of the instruction of the electric control valves; In the secondly, software: revising program on the basis of a large number of test data.
TABLE I.

[1] [2]

[3]

[4] TEST DATA AND RESULTS OF CONTROL SYSTEM

Setting fertilizer (kg/ hm2) Measureme nt fertilizer (kg/ hm2) Relative error(%)

[5]

Longitude

Latitude

132.638383 132.638668 132.638940 132.638940 132.639039

46.234362 46.234145 46.234029 46.233943 46.233869

254.21 245.56 252.48 255.94 254.21

262.85 252.68 261.31 268.48 263.86

3.4 2.9 3.5 4.9 3.8

[6]

[7]

[8]

V.

CONCLUSION [9]

With the ARM microprocessor as the core, the deep type liquid variable fertilization control system is designed and table developed in UCOS-operating system environment by using C language. It has realized the comparison of the setting flow signal and the actual flow signal, adjusted electric control valve export control signals, adjusted valve opening to equate the flow of the pipe to the setting and so on. By comparing the setting of fertilizer with the measuring of fertilizer, we can get fertilizing amounts relative error. The control error of the spray fertilizer needle of the system is less than or equal to 5%, so the method of software and hardware for the liquid variable rate fertilizer control system is reasonable. ACKNOWLEDGMENT Foundation item: the National Natural Science Foundation of China (50875043), Studying Abroad Returned Fund Project Heilongjiang province (L08C15). REFERENCES

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

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