With the constant need for reliable and accurate process control, the field of industrial agriculture is rapidly adopting sophisticated industrial control-based solutions. Modern agricultural producers are increasingly turning to robust and accessible Ethernet-based control and data acquisition (DAQ) systems to manage their facilities. By implementing these technologies, agricultural facilities can achieve significant benefits, including increased crop productivity, enhanced remote accessibility, and greater profitability through optimized resource management (like water and fertilizer).
ICP DAS USA recently assisted a client in developing a comprehensive agricultural monitoring system. The core requirement was to enable real-time precision monitoring of irrigation and fertilization parameters essential for plant health and operation. The proposed control system needed advanced capabilities:
-Local data logging.
-An online graphical display.
-Comparative analysis of historical trends.
-A user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) accessible both locally and remotely via a standard web browser.
ICP DAS USA designed a comprehensive agricultural monitoring system for a client to track irrigation and fertilization data in real time. The system required local data storage, online graphical logging, comparative analysis, and a web-accessible, user-friendly GUI.
The solution implemented was the WP-8829-CE7 Windows CE.net /SCADA-equipped programmable automation controller (PAC). This WinCON platform provided a modular, open architecture compatible with commercial off-the-shelf I/O modules and the powerful web capabilities of SCADA software’s HMI package. This IPC/PLC combined architecture replaced an unreliable, old IPC-based system. Its industrial ratings allowed the WP-8829-CE7 to be mounted locally as an HMI station, reliably resisting high temperatures and dust.
The integration of the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) package is key to the system’s high performance and remote management capabilities. Its primary functionalities for this precision agriculture application include:
-Real-time data acquisition: Acquiring essential sensor data from remote I/O devices, utilizing a radio link for wide-area coverage within the facility.
-Historical data logging: Storing historical information and critical events directly within the main controller for future analysis.
-Web thin client access: Providing online and historical process information to remote users via web thin clients, ensuring management can monitor operations from any location.
-Automated alerting: Sending time-sensitive notifications via pagers (or modern SMS/email) instantly when critical events or process deviations occur.
-Scheduled reporting: Delivering automated status reports to pagers based on a user-defined date/schedule.
To further enhance the system’s intelligence, ICP DAS USA strategically retrofitted several distributed remote I-7000 I/O modules. Located throughout the facility, this enhanced RS-485-based DAQ infrastructure provides critical, granular data, including:
-Soil moisture state (dry or wet)
-Environmental sensing (e.g., wind speed/direction via wind vane)
-Fertigation valve status
By routing the revised RS-485 network back through the WinCON, all associated sensor data is seamlessly aggregated and brought onto the local LAN (Local Area Network) via the controller’s 10BaseT Ethernet port with ease. An additional, valuable feature provided by the WinCON PAC implementation was the capability to interface with the plant’s existing LAN-based paging system. This integration allows plant engineers to trigger communications from any local WinCON-equipped workstation, streamlining on-site worker coordination and response times seamlessly.
The successful implementation of the robust ICP DAS USA’s WP-8829-CE7 PAC and the scalable I-7000 remote I/O modules provided the client with newfound capability in their control and data acquisition infrastructure. Now equipped with user-friendly remote SCADA accessibility, facility supervisors can maintain a constant, real-time watch over production metrics and resource consumption from both local workstations and remote devices, driving operational efficiency in modern agribusiness with ICP DAS USA’s solution.
