Improving ISO 11783 file transfers into mobile farm equipments using on-the-fly data compression

•The bandwidth is not a uniformly available resource in agricultural infrastructure.•A data compression protocol called ISOBUSComp for ISO 11783 networks is introduced.•Receiving ECUs need not to know advance the data compression method used.•ISOBUSComp is inspired in the design of the SigComp protocol used in VoIP services.•Improving the bus utilization using ISOBUSComp is between 28% and 63%.

It is considered the bandwidth bottleneck problem arising in ISO 11783 networks of mobile farm equipments when large file transfers are performed. To overcome this problem, a compression protocol called ISOBUSComp allowing the implementation of dynamic (“on the fly”) data compression services for general ISO11783 file transfers is proposed. As a result, transmitting Electronic Control Units are free to choose any data compression technique they wish and receiving Electronic Control Units need not to be aware of such decisions, but just be able to process a suitable Universal Decompression Virtual Machine. Comprehensive simulation studies show that dynamic data compression services built upon the proposed protocol help to reduce bus utilization of ISO 11783 networks between a 28% and a 63%, thus speeding up the time for large file transfers.