Feasibility analysis of a remote monitoring system for sugar cane harvesting and planting

Abstract

With the expansion of mechanization in the production process of sugarcane there were productivity as well as environmental gains, but it brought significant impacts on production costs, representing about a quarter of the total. Management systems currently used do not allow reaching all available productive potential, due to the lack of real-time communication, making the decisions taken during the operation to be poorly made or considerably delayed, causing loss of productivity and final product quality. The objective of this study is to evaluate the technical feasibility of developing a solution that uses communication technologies customized to sugarcane CCT applications as well as planting. To achieve this goal, an equipment will be developed equipped with three communication technologies (ZigBee, GPRS and Satellite), which will work together to ensure real-time delivery of field information to the management system. Such equipment should be tested under field conditions, both in harvesting and planting operations, in different situations during the season. It is expected that this solution will be able to improve the management of CCT operations in most national applications. (AU)