Bulletin UASVM Horticulture, 67(2)/2010

Print ISSN 1843-5254; Electronic ISSN 1843-5394

Applications of GPS in Agriculture

Ancuta Simona ROTARU

Faculty of Horticulture, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine,

3-5 Manastur Street, Cluj-Napoca, Romania; anca_panea@yahoo.com

Abstract. In this paper we present the theoretical basis of GPS technology and its use in
agriculture. This modern technology is well known due to its wide application in transport however it
could have many uses in agriculture. Application such as precise organization of land and
measurement of land, tight control of crops type and creation of high precision digitized maps for
agriculture purposes are some of the novel ways through which GPS has revolutionize the modern
agriculture. As our country strides to align itself to EU policy, agricultural policies will require
compliance with European standards, hence GPS technology will become more and more important in
achieving those goals (http://www.gps-romania.ro/gps_nav.htm).

Keywords: GPS, DGPS, monitoring, navigation, terrain organization, agriculture.

INTRODUCTION

Global Positioning System (GPS), which forever revolutionized location, monitoring,

navigation and other related complex applications, is the outcome of significant investments
by the U.S. Department of Defense. Today, GPS technology has been transferred partly in
civil sphere, finding use in many fields such as auto transportation, rail, ship and aircraft,
construction equipment, equipment monitoring and surveillance, agriculture, cartography,
medicine and so on. (Mureşan, 2006).
Aligning our country to EU policy, and hence the common agricultural policy requires
compliance with European standards, which is impossible to achieve without the use of new
technologies.
GPS is a network of satellites orbiting around the Earth, they form the GPS network.
The satellites were placed into the space to be used for military purposes by the Department
of Defense U.S. Army, but today it can be used by civilians. Today, the satellites are the
responsibility of the United States Air Force and the maintenance and replacement exceeds
the amount of U.S. $ 700 million annually. U.S. government does not charge for services
using GPS, the only costs incurred by users as those relating to purchase GPS receivers.
Although GPS technology has seen, including our country, a rapid and wide utilization, we
can see that the general principles of this technology are relatively unknown and sometime
ignored. This situation could lead to overstated performances of GPS technology („if this was
measured with the GPS it means that the results cannot be wrong”) or to an inefficient and
incomplete usage of possibilities. (www.scritube.com/stiinta/arhitectura-constructii/ SISTEME-
DE-POZITIONARE-GLOBALA 82922129.php)
GPS is a worldwide radio navigation system formed from a constellation of 24
satellites placed in orbit around Earth (Fig. 1.) and associated ground stations. Moreover,
these satellites are evenly distributed as to ensure a uniform coverage of the entire globe. Such
a distribution suppose the existence of 6 orbits with 4 satellites. The 24 satellites with the
trajectories are composing the space segment of the GPS. Technical characteristics of the GPS

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satellites refers to altitude (20200 km), time (12 hours), frequency 1557 MHz, 1228 MHz,
data navigation (4D, X, Y, Z, t) and so on.
The control segment is one of the most important parts of the whole system. It controls
the satellites, checks the satellites time, calculates the orbits and the time corrections and
navigation data and the content of each message received from the satellites.
Segment consists of a main station (Master Control Station / MCS) located in
Colorado Springs, three monitoring stations and ground antennas in Kwajalein, Ascension
Island and Diego Garcia and two monitoring stations in Colorado Springs and Hawaii (Fig.
2.) .

Fig.1. GPS satellite constellation Fig. 2. Ground Stations

The monitoring stations are receiving signals from satellites and send them to the
master station along with meteorological data. Here, the received data is processed resulting
navigation data and time corrections. Data is then redirected to antenna stations being
transmitted under a message format to each satellite.
To calculate the exact position the system uses the triangulation principle, being
necessary to know the coordinates from three satellites. (Auernhammers, 1994).
GPS uses this artificial stars to calculate the terrestrial position of objects with a precision
measured in meters. In fact, with advanced forms of GPS, DPS (Differential Global
Positioning System) we can do measurements with an accuracy of a few centimeters.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

One of the areas where the GPS communication technology can be used successfully,
is surprisingly the agriculture, especially that this is a very traditional industry. The
integration of our country in European Union imposes the following of European standards
and ranging to the Common Agricultural Policy, which is difficult to accomplish without the
use of new technologies. To benefit from the European funds, Romania must have high
accuracy agricultural cadastral plans; accurate digital agricultural plans and maps; detailed
databases for cadastral agricultural data; precise measurements of agricultural and non-
agricultural areas; permanent means of measuring the areas cultivated with different types of
cultures and crops; permanent control of areas with different types of crops; means of
updating permanently the agricultural infrastructure through the introduction of the newest
technology, hence answering the stringent requests imposed by EU. Using a computer system
based on GPS and DGPS technologies will allow to achieve quickly and efficiently the
requirements imposed by the EU.

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 The Integrated System for Administration and Control (IACS) was set-up in Romania,
to monitor some types of financial aids. For this is necessary to collect data regarding terrain
nature and surface, crop area and harvests. The usage of GPS/DGPS allows for an efficient
way to obtain accurate data for administrating and control of financial aids. The GPS/DGPS
applied in agriculture represents the main tool for real time management of specific
agricultural information and to help in allocate correctly funds, both locally and nationally.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A correct assessment of GPS position measurements in the field measurement

techniques must be based first on an analysis of both-related opportunities regarding extreme
lengths domain, on the other hand the accuracies obtained with these techniques and no
ultimately the criteria for equipment and personnel costs. This comparison can be traced in
Figure 3.
Classical methods for determining the length does not exceed 60 km with precision of
about 0.25 to 0.30 m. Around the same field length are inertial methods that fall transit
methods.
At the other extreme of distances it is the interferometry with very long basis with
laser range measurements from satellites. Both methods are extremely sophisticated and
expensive, difficult to use in daily activities, especially in agriculture.

Fig. 3. Comparison of measurement techniques

If we refer to accuracies determinations, we note that classical field and the GPS
distances are comparable only in less than 15 km, because over this value, the GPS technique
is more accurate. Another detail to be considered is that the of the ease of handling. As
important steps were made in miniaturization receivers, they practically become extremely
easy to use, regardless of the position on the globe or relief conditions. In our country,the use
in agriculture of this technology is at the beginning, being used in most cases for mapping
land parcels.
For example, in developed countries for mapping land according to harvest achieved a
software is used, to obtain express crop yield maps obtained from small units of area.

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 In the developed countries the mapping of land according to the harvest is achieved
through a specialized software. This will greatly help in forecasting the possible productive
potential of the parcels.For example using such technology the following map can be
obtained (Fig. 4).
This is a map of productive potential of a parcel is of 16.6 hectares, sown with wheat
and with an average production of 5.2 t/ha . This example is for a farm in Germany (Ţenu et
al., 2006).

Fig. 4. Productive potential of a parcel map

CONCLUSIONS

To conclude one can say that using GPS technology has several advantages that are
worth mentioning such as precision that is almost constant regardless of distance between
points, there is no need to have direct sight of the measured points, the data generated may be
processed by a microcomputer and of course the reduced costs implied by these advantages.

REFERENCES

1. Auernhammers, H. (1994). GPS in agriculture. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture,

11(1).
2. Mureşan, M. (2006). GPS Technology for the Development of Business Information
System. Revista Informatică Economică, nr. 4.
3. Ţenu, I.,V. Vâlcu and P. Cojocaru (2006). Studii privind condiţiile de implementare a
conceptului de “Agricultură de precizie”, Lucrări Ştiinţifice, Universitatea de Ştiinţe Agricole şi
Medicină Veterinară Iaşi.
4.*** http://www.gpsworld.com/gpsworld/
5.*** http://www.gps-romania.ro/gps_nav.htm
6.***http://www.scritube.com/stiinta/arhitectura-constructii/SISTEME-DE-POZITIONARE-
GLOBALA 82922129.php

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