Patent Application
20070214300
The present invention relates to an agricultural communication system, and, more particularly to an agricultural data communication system.
Over the years data gathering instruments have been incorporated and retrofit into agricultural equipment. Instruments were developed and adapted for use with agricultural equipment, such as a harvester/combine. Such an agricultural instrument would include a agricultural yield monitor, which may be utilized in a combine for the detection of the yield per acre of the crop being harvested. Such a grain yield monitor is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,282,389, which discloses a system for measuring flow pressure of conveying clean yield product and for converting this pressure data to a meaningful flow rate signal and to generate a field yield map. Such a yield monitor, may be incorporated into a combine when it is being produced or a retrofit kit may be utilized to instrument the combine.
As the evolution of agricultural instrumentation has progressed data interfaces were incorporated into the agricultural instrumentation. Such data interfaces allowed for the insertion of memory cards, such as PCMCIA cards so that information could be stored thereon. The information is gathered in the field and/or the information contained on the memory card can be utilized in some aspect of the agricultural equipment operational performance in the field.
Advances in the instrumentation of agricultural equipment has taken place, which has tended to obsolete the legacy agricultural instrumentation system. A legacy system as referred to herein is used to denote an agricultural electrical assembly that accepts a memory card but does not otherwise communicate with a computer or network system.
What is needed in the art is a device that will allow the use of legacy electrical instrumentation systems with the integrated modernized systems in a cost effective manner.
The present invention consists of a mobile agricultural vehicle including a frame, a motor carried by the frame, a standalone data processing assembly, a sensor and a plug-in card. The standalone data processing assembly has a data interface but is without communications capability. The standalone data processing assembly is mounted to the frame. The sensor is coupled to the standalone data processing assembly, the sensor generating a signal that is used by the standalone data processing assembly. The plug-in card interfaces with the data interface and has a processor, a memory and a network interface device. The memory is accessible by the processor and by the standalone data processing assembly. The network interface device transmits and receives information, the information being accessed in the memory by the processor transparent to the standalone data processing assembly.
Referring now to the drawings, and more particularly to
Legacy assembly 12, as used in its standalone mode apart from the present invention, reads and/or stores information in a non-volatile memory contained on a PCMCIA card inserted into interface 20. The information may be related to the delivery of a product, such as a chemical, that is to be delivered in a geographically sensitive quantity. Legacy assembly 12 utilizes positional information from a location determining circuit, such as a global positioning circuit, and couples that with information in the memory to deliver the product in a quantity that is dependent upon the location. In a similar manner, legacy assembly 12 can write information to the memory that may be related to the geographical location, such as a crop yield. The information read from and/or written to the memory is then later physically transferred by a user that removes the PCMCIA card and inserts it into a processing device such as a computer.
Now, additionally referring to
Gateway processor 30 interacts with memory 26 and gateway memory 32. Information stored in gateway memory 32 is not accessible by legacy assembly 12, since legacy assembly 12 functions without any interfering interaction with gateway processor 30, gateway memory 32, external network interface 28 or communication circuitry 34. Gateway processor 30 interacts with memory 26 in a manner that is transparent to legacy assembly 12. Information in memory 26 may be accessed by legacy assembly 12 and by gateway processor 30 in a single memory cycle, thereby making the access of memory 26 by gateway processor 30 transparent to legacy assembly 12. Another manner of transparently interfacing with memory 26, is to queue read/write requests by gateway processor 30 so that they do not conflict with read/write operations by legacy assembly 12.
A communication link 38, which may be in the form of a cable 38 that is removably connected to external network interface 28, or an antenna 38 connected to communications circuits 34, convey data and information from circuit card 22 to a computer 40. Computer 40 may be remote from communication interface system 10 and information transmitted to and from communication interface system 10 can be utilized to update information in memory 26. For example, information about the field in which legacy assembly 12 is gathering or utilizing data can be stored, removed or updated as information is communicated over communication link 38 to memory 26 by way of gateway processor 30. Alternatively, computer 40 can be a Field/Farm Network Information System (FNIS) node, which conveys and receives information relative to the field/farm in which the present invention is being used.
Now, additionally referring to
Communication interface system 10 allows the utilization of legacy assemblies 12, while allowing memory 26 to be addressed on a real time basis, by communication interface system 10 without altering legacy assembly 12. Communication interface system 10 is backward compatible with a PCMCIA card, which legacy system 12 would normally operate with. The incorporation of communication interface system 10 allows on the go alterations in data contained in memory 26 completely transparent to the operation of legacy system 12. Alternatively, an identification sequence, circuitry or mechanic device may be present in assembly 10 to identify communication interface system 10, thereby allowing a system, more sophisticated than legacy assembly 12, connected to assembly 10 to directly use the services of assembly 10.
Having described the preferred embodiment, it will become apparent that various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention as defined in the accompanying claims.
