Use of the “smart transducer” concept and IEEE 1451 standards in system integration for precision agriculture

As an increasing number of electronic control units with various types of sensors and actuators are embedded in agricultural machines and processes, efficient system integration has become a critical issue. A recently developed agricultural bus standard, ISO 11783, provided a platform for mobile equipment communications, enabling a plug-and-play capability for implement microcontrollers made by different manufacturers. This paper further recommends the use of the IEEE 1451 standards to design “smart transducers” to facilitate plug-and-play for sensors and actuators made by different manufacturers and thus further simplifying system integration. In this paper, the IEEE 1451 standards are reviewed, compatibility between ISO 11783 and IEEE 1451 is analyzed, an example of a weed sensing system using both the IEEE 1451 and the LBS standard (a predecessor of the ISO 11783 standard) is introduced, and the advantages and disadvantages of this implementation are discussed.