Agricultural situational awareness tool

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016019560-A1
Application number	US-201514801204-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jul 16, 2015
Priority date	Jul 16, 2014
Publication date	Jan 21, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A system for collecting and analyzing agricultural data. A team of crop scouts performs a scouting operation in a farm, each crop scout interacting with a mobile device. The mobile device provides a navigation display guiding the scout along a route, from one data collection point to the next. At each data collection point, the crop scout makes observations and measurements and inputs the corresponding data into the mobile device. A control operator at a central location monitors the progress of the scouting operation and revises the routes or locations of data collection points when appropriate, based on data received during the scouting operation. A cloud service analyzes the data and provides recommendations to a farm operator.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A system for collecting crop data and environmental data from a field, the system comprising:
a plurality of mobile devices configured to be deployed to the field; and a central controller; the mobile devices being configured to be connected to each other and to the central controller, while in the field, by wireless data connections; each mobile device being configured:
to display a current device location;
to store and display a current scouting path; and
to receive, in the field, from the central controller, a revised scouting path, and to substitute the revised scouting path for the stored current scouting path;
the mobile device further being configured to receive, while in the field, input including current crop data or current environmental data, and to send, while in the field, to the central controller, the current crop data or current environmental data.

2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the central controller is configured to provide to a mobile device of the plurality of mobile devices, upon request from the mobile device, while the mobile device is in the field, historical crop data or environmental data.

3 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the central controller is configured to:
receive a data request from the mobile device, the data request including a range of dates, and provide to the mobile device temporally filtered data, the temporally filtered data including only data corresponding to dates within the range of dates.

4 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the central controller is configured to:
receive a data request from the mobile device, the data request including a crop scout location and a radius, and provide to the mobile device spatially filtered data, the spatially filtered data including only data corresponding to positions in the field separated from the crop scout location by a distance less than the radius.

5 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the central controller comprises a dedicated computing device and a cloud server.

6 . The system of claim 1 , wherein each of the current scouting path and the revised scouting path comprises a route and a data collection point.

7 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the central controller is configured to provide a control interface, the control interface being configured to receive input, from a control operator, for modifying a scouting path to form the revised scouting path.

8 . The system of claim 7 , wherein the interface is a graphical interface, and the input comprises dragging a point on a route of the scouting path.

9 . The system of claim 8 wherein the input further comprises dragging a data collection point of the scouting path.

10 . The system of claim 7 , wherein the interface is configured to receive information about a crop scouting hazard from the control operator.

11 . The system of claim 10 , wherein the central controller is further configured to send a hazard alert, containing the information about the crop scouting hazard, to a mobile device of the plurality of mobile devices.

12 . The system of claim 1 , wherein each mobile device includes a global positioning system (GPS) receiver.

13 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising a sensor configured to measure a characteristic selected from the group consisting of soil pH, soil moisture, and soil nitrogen level.

14 . The system of claim 13 , wherein the sensor is configured to transmit data including a measured characteristic to a mobile device of the plurality of mobile devices.

15 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising a sensor configured to measure a characteristic selected from the group consisting of air temperature, wind, and air humidity.

16 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising a camera configured to take a near-infrared image and a red image, and to transmit the near-infrared image and the red image to a mobile device of the plurality of mobile devices,
wherein the mobile device is configured to calculate a normalized difference vegetation index from the near-infrared image and the red image.

17 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the mobile device is configured to communicate with a piece of agricultural equipment over an International Standards Organization 11783 electrical interface.

18 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the central controller is configured to:
receive a scouting report; combine data from the scouting report with weather data from a cloud weather service; generate an irrigation prescription based on the data from the scouting report and the weather data; and control an irrigation controller to irrigate the field according to the irrigation prescription.

Assignees

• Raytheon Co

Inventors

• Benkert John G
• Kyker William J
• Sica Michael P
• Dudash Jason
• Shivers Joseph L
• Ray Justin W

Classifications

• G06Q10/06311

  Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group · CPC title

• G06Q10/063114

  Status monitoring or status determination for a person or group · CPC title

• G06Q30/02

  Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising · CPC title

• G06Q30/0201 Primary

  Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data · CPC title

• G06Q10/00

  Administration; Management · CPC title