International Conference on Advanced Computer Control

Study on ARM Processor Based Embedded Intelligent Yield System Controller

Yuan Yanwei, Zhang Xiaochao, Zhao Huaping

Institute of Mechatronics Technology and Application
Chinese Academy of Agricultural Mechanization Sciences
Box25, No.1 Beishatan, Dewai St, Beijing, 100083, P.R.CHINA
Email: yyw215@163.com

Abstract peripheral equipment with the s3c 2440 processor.

In order to generalize yield detection system, an ARM
processor s3c 2440 was used to develop an embedded 2. Extension of the ARM developing board
intelligent yield controller. In this thesis, we extended
the ports of s3c 2440 circuit board, and compiled the QQ 2440 V3 is a high-powered but low price
development of corresponding drivers. Developed the ARM9 demo board, which uses S3C2440 as
internet applications of the yield distribution detection microprocessor, uses stable CPU kernel power chip and
system, which can run in the embedded controller, and reposition chip to maintain the stability of the system.
accomplish the receiving and processing of GPS data,
the calculating and analyzing of yield sensors and CAN
bus node sensors. Yield map was protracted according 2.1 Extension of serial ports
to the disposed data, which supplied the decision making
system of digital agriculture. There are three serial ports needed in ARM
Key words: ARM, yield detection system, yield map, controller, but only one in the QQ 2440 v3 board, so, it
digital agriculture is necessary to extend two serial ports. To do this, level
converter MAX3232 was used. MAX3232 is the
transceiver of serial RS-232, with the power of +5V, and
1. Introduction only several capacitances needed to compose the circuits,
which are shown as figure 1.
The yield and its distribution are key to the
adjustment of crop planting and appraising, so, obtain
the yield data and the difference between the spatial
distributions is crucial to the implementation of digital
agriculture [1-3].
Much research has been down on yield distribution
information detection technology in developed
countries[4-6], and the yield detection system developed
by Chinese Academy of Agricultural Mechanization
Sciences had proved to be feasible in experiments[7, 8],
but not applied generally yet because of the expensive
on-board computer, which was used as central controller.
With the development of embedded technology and
electronics science, the usage of high-powered
embedded processors in intelligent control is practical.
In this thesis, the circuit board s3c 2440 based on
ARM9 kernel was used to develop the intelligent yield
controller, which has the character of stable capability,
low price, etc, and is suitable to be used on combine.
One quondam serial port together with two extended
were used to collect the data of yield sensors, GPS
receivers and CDMA model, and CAN bus was also
used to detect the moisture sensors. The corresponding
drivers were developed to insure the compatibility of

978-0-7695-3516-6/08 $25.00 © 2008 IEEE 217

DOI 10.1109/ICACC.2009.15
 Figure 1. Schematics of Serial port expansion circuits

In the environment of embedded virtual c++ 4.0,

the data receiving and sending through serial ports is
realized by using API function to construct a serial class
CCESeries, which can asynchronously read and write,
the flowing chart is as figure 2.

Figure 3. Circuits of the CAN node

2.3 Development of Windows CE operating

system on special hardware platform

We customized windows CE operation system

according to the embedded board. As a compact,
efficient and Scalable operation system, windows CE
was widely used in many embedded equipments. Wince
is composed of for main basic modules: kernel module,
ObjectStore model, GWES model and communication
model. Board Support Packet (BSP) was used to build
windows CE system, the flow is as figure 4.

Figure 2. Flow chart of receiving and sending data

through serial ports

In figure 2, the OpenPort method is used to open

serial ports according to the given parameters, then read
and write asynchronously through establishing thread.
ClosePort method is corresponding to OpenPort method,
which is used to close the serial ports and release
resource, as well as close read and write thread.
SetSeriesTimeOuts method is used to set overtime
information, and writeport method is used to write data
to serial ports, while call-back function m_OnSeriesRead
is used to inform us when read thread detect there are
data in serial ports to be read.

2.2 Extension of CAN bus

CAN (Controller Area Network) bus is the

international criterion because of its high capability, high
security and particular design [10], and we expended CAN
bus to the ARM board to elevate its currency. CAN
intelligent node was designed by a 89S51
Single-Chip-Microcomputer, a TJA1050 bus transceiver
and a MCP2510 CAN controller. A photoelectric
isolators was used to link the MCP2510 and TJA1050 to
enhance the anti-jamming capability of the system.
Figure 3 is the Schematic figure of the circuit.
Figure 4. Flow of building WinCE in platform builder
3. Design of intelligent yield system
The intelligent yield system is composed of XZ-1
combine, yield monitor, ARM controller, Combine
Header Height detection sensor, moisture sensor and so
on, just as figure 5.

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Figure 5. Hardware of yield distribution detection
system
Fix an AllStar GPS receiver on the combine, which
give the position data of the combine once in a second
through com port 1. And the yield sensor was fixed upon
the granary of the combine, send data to the arm
controller through com port 2. A CDMA module was
connected to the arm through com port 3 to translate
information between the arm and the upper computer.
CAN bus node was also used to connect moisture sensor
to detect the moisture of wheat flowed through yield
sensors. Figure 6 is the principle of the system.
Figure 6. Principle of the yield detection system
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Code was written with embedded Visual C++
(Edition 4.0, Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Washington) to
read data from serial ports of GPS, yield flowmeter,
moisture sensor and switch.
4. Experiment data and results analysis
The experiments were carried out at Changping
wheat demonstrate plantation of CAAMS in June
2008. The plantation has a shape of approximately
rhombus (E 116.2752° ~ E 116.2836°, N 40.1581° ~
N 40.1627°). Figure 7 is the picture of the ARM
controller in experiments.
Figure 7. Picture of The ARM controller in experiments
4.1 Traveling trace of the combine
When display combine’s track on digital maps,
combine producers can know each combine’s
location and make good use of them, besides, the
combine drivers can see clearly from the panels of
on-board computer where the edges of the reaping
farm is, how far the combine is from each edge, and
the area harvested and left, etc.
TrackingLayer is a map layer on which to draw
dynamic geographic data. The location of a moving
vehicle can be determined by a GPS receiver, after
transmitted to the computer in real time, it was
transformed to coordinate in BJ-54 system.
The TrackingLayer object has an Event property that
stores GeoEvent objects, which represent dynamic
geographic phenomena, using X property to store a
horizontal coordinate, and Y property to store a vertical
one. SymbolIndex property specified which symbol to use
when drawing the GeoEvent on the TrackingLayer. Move
and MoveTo methods renewed GeoEvents, AddEvent
method added a GeoEvent to the TrackingLayer, and the
TrackingLayer redrew the other layers independently,
then combine’s track was displayed when refreshed
methods were used to call the function:
Map1_AfterTrackingLayerDraw(ByVal hDC As
stdole.OLE_ HANDLE).
 The rhombus outside is the edges of the plantation,
and thin lines inside are the track of the combine In figure 9, the southwest portions have
(figure 8). substantially lower yields than the other portions, for
there are many big trees planted.
5. Conclusions

The ARM board QQ2440 was used in this thesis

to develop an intelligent yield detection system. To
satisfy the requirement of the system, hardware
Interface of the board was extended, which include
to COM ports and the CAN bus. Drives was
developed and wince operation system was
customized， upon which, the application program
of yield detection system was developed.
Experiments showed that: (1), QQ2440 can be used
in the system instead of the on-board computer,
which is more expensive, (2), yield map was drown
according to the data gathered when harvesting, and
(3), it is necessary had helpful to develop the system
to support decision support system of precision
agriculture.

Figure 8. The track of the combine in field References

4.2 yield map [1]
Yield maps are a very important piece of information.
Each point in the maps is composed of a GPS data
collected once in a second and weight, which is a [2]
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represented by different colors at relevant coordinates. To
get consecutive maps, Kriging interpolation is needed.The
system was tested on Jun. 19-20, 2005, and a wheat yield
map was generated through Kriging interpolation (figure
9).
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Figure 9. Yield maps of the experiment field
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