An Object-Oriented Architecture for Field Data Acquisition, Processing and Information Extraction

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2003-07-01
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Shrestha, Dev
Steward, Brian
Van Wyngarden, Cory
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Steward, Brian
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Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering

Since 1905, the Department of Agricultural Engineering, now the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering (ABE), has been a leader in providing engineering solutions to agricultural problems in the United States and the world. The department’s original mission was to mechanize agriculture. That mission has evolved to encompass a global view of the entire food production system–the wise management of natural resources in the production, processing, storage, handling, and use of food fiber and other biological products.

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In 1905 Agricultural Engineering was recognized as a subdivision of the Department of Agronomy, and in 1907 it was recognized as a unique department. It was renamed the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering in 1990. The department merged with the Department of Industrial Education and Technology in 2004.

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1905–present

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  • Department of Agricultural Engineering (1907–1990)

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Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering
Abstract

Software architecture was developed to automate site specific field data acquisition, processing, and geo-referenced crop plant parameters extraction. The architecture supported acquisition and processing of different data streams such as digital video for machine vision and digital serial communications of NMEA strings. The number of channels for data import could be easily expanded for multiple video, GPS, and other signal sources. The architecture was objectoriented and each component in the architecture was developed as a separate class. A key component of this architecture was a supervisor class, which communicated and coordinated the operations on all other classes. Based on this framework, early stage corn population estimation (ESCOPE) software was developed which grabs pre-recorded digital video from a vehicle-mounted camera, that was passed over corn rows, and acquires GPS strings which were modulated and recorded on the audio channel. A digital video (DV) capture class was written to acquire video using Microsoft’s DirectShow® technology which enables camera control and video acquisition using higher level hardware functions. After completion of software development, reusability and extensibility characteristics were demonstrated by adding a class to acquire images from the hard drive and also by deriving a new image analyzer class to extract an additional feature. The architecture forms a general framework for developing reusable and extensible software for field data sensing systems.

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Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 UTC 2003