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AGOpenGPS + Tree Planter

6K views 24 replies 6 participants last post by  BrianTee 
#1 ·
Hi
I'm new on this, I'm installing AGOpenGPS on a tractor, but I need to use to plant trees with a planter tath I made, and I need to measure distances from one plant to another, It's possible use AGOpenGPS to do this with some changes?, I'm only need to set the start point in a Row, and set a distance, like 1 meter, and I need to get some signal (may be an Arduino to activate a relay)

Now I have a tractor with a Topcon Autosteer, and ? only need to measure the distance, but I loved if AgOpenGPS to do this to implement on more tractors, also I have 2 ArduSimple boards communicated by Xbee (Base and Rover) and I get RTK Fix to the rover for do this measure correct.
 
#2 ·
Hi
I'm new on this, I'm installing AGOpenGPS on a tractor, but I need to use to plant trees with a planter tath I made, and I need to measure distances from one plant to another, It's possible use AGOpenGPS to do this with some changes?, I'm only need to set the start point in a Row, and set a distance, like 1 meter, and I need to get some signal (may be an Arduino to activate a relay)

Now I have a tractor with a Topcon Autosteer, and ? only need to measure the distance, but I loved if AgOpenGPS to do this to implement on more tractors, also I have 2 ArduSimple boards communicated by Xbee (Base and Rover) and I get RTK Fix to the rover for do this measure correct.

Would you manually reset the distance at the start of the row?
 
#3 ·
Thanks for your answer, and thanks for this great software.

Yes, I can manually reset on each row.

Some systems like Cerea, Topcon or Trimble, have an option for tree planting, and you setup the width and spacing, but is more complex, for me, I only need a signal very x distance to activate a relay.
I think if it not possible to implement on AGOpenGPS, may be I can do with ardusimple and a Arduino.
 
#4 ·
Thanks for your answer, and thanks for this great software.

Yes, I can manually reset on each row.

Some systems like Cerea, Topcon or Trimble, have an option for tree planting, and you setup the width and spacing, but is more complex, for me, I only need a signal very x distance to activate a relay.
I think if it not possible to implement on AGOpenGPS, may be I can do with ardusimple and a Arduino.

So you would need a button to reset distance in AgOpenGPS, then send the distance out the autosteer port? Is centimeters accurate enough? How fast are you driving?

The arduino then could keep track of accumulated distance and trigger as required. When it sees a zero come its way, it could just reset and start again.
 
#9 ·
Hi Brian,

Last year we planted vineyards with a GPS machine.
For this it might be good to set/modify the angle between rows and transverse direction, normally 90°.
Modifying this angle gives you the ability to have all first plants of the lines in one row in not rectangular field.

The latest software of those machines does 90° in the fields and creates wedges at the headland to have all first plants in one row.

The easy way of this would be use allways 90° and be able to set plants by hand, or plant at the headland line to have a exact start/end.

Just my 2ct
Greetings Matthias
 
#10 ·
Thanks MTZ, that will have to be version 2! I'm not sure i understand all that.

Requirements:
Have 1 section only.
The start/stop button automatically turns on/off the manual for mapping.

Be sure to set the spacing before starting in gps/imu settings, tree plant tab.

The arduino can read the uturn byte which contains the distance left to travel to the next tree. When it drops back to 0, then trigger to plant. Easily done as you just compare the last value with the new value and if the new value is less then last one - bam, plant time.
This is first attempt, but it should work. I'll put on github dev.

 
#11 ·
Wow!!

So fast, I try to understand, but I think it will work. The arduino part I don't understand, how do I communicate?

It is possible to draw some reference lines to start and stop? or in a boundary.

Thanks a lot for your help. I hope try soon. (My plantation will be in 1 month, I need to plant 40 ha.
 
#14 ·
I just got my tablet and have installed the software. I see there is a 250cm limit. I need 610, (20'). I figure I can write code that will count every 4th time 153 is hit. From there I can fire the relay. Where will I find this counter? A variiale name? Is this in AOG or ( I hope) in arduino?

Thanks
 
#15 ·
Updated tree plant on github AgOpenGPS_Dev.



You can now do spacing up to 50m. Also uTurn in the autosteer byte cycles 1 to 0 or 0 to 1 upon trigger. All you need to do is look for a change in the uTurn byte and fire your relay or whatever. In the small left side display you can see the uturn byte cycle from 0 to 1 to 0 to 1 to..... as it triggers. If you turn off tree planting (set it to 0 ) the uturn byte will return to normal.


Be sure to set up the vehicle to have 1 section.



Here is the code for triggering in position.cs



Code:
            //tree spacing
            if (vehicle.treeSpacing != 0 && section[0].isSectionOn) treeSpacingCounter += (distanceCurrentStepFix*100);

            //keep the distance below spacing
            if (treeSpacingCounter > vehicle.treeSpacing && vehicle.treeSpacing != 0)
            {
                if (treeTrigger == 0) treeTrigger = 1;
                else treeTrigger = 0;
                while (treeSpacingCounter > vehicle.treeSpacing) treeSpacingCounter -= vehicle.treeSpacing;
            }

Most of the code is quite simple, other then maybe the While loop. Suppose your spacing is 100 cm. The GPS triggers at 5 or 10 hz so it goes 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 105 - bam a trigger. Now you can't just reset to 0 or you will lose that 5 cm so the spacing is subtracted and starts counting a 5 again. Vehicle class stores the spacing, display settings sets the spacing.



Go slow so the gps takes small fixes and adds up slowly.
 
#19 ·
Thank you brian.

Now I will show how little I know. Where do I find position.cs?

Since I can some what follow the code I'm guessing this is c++. (Sort of looks like arduino code)

I'd like to learn this stuff.
1. I'd be able to follow what's happening better.
2. Maybe some day I can contribute!

Can you point me to a good resource to learn programming and any software needed. Like arduino IED.

The next project I'm going to build will be a scale wagon. If I do it in c++ maybe it could be a module for a combine controller or weight wagon? My contribution? (If it should be done with arduino that would be easier, but I'd still like to learn c++.

Thanks for any guidance you can give me!
 
#20 ·
Thank you brian.

Now I will show how little I know. Where do I find position.cs?

Since I can some what follow the code I'm guessing this is c++. (Sort of looks like arduino code)

I'd like to learn this stuff.
1. I'd be able to follow what's happening better.
2. Maybe some day I can contribute!

Can you point me to a good resource to learn programming and any software needed. Like arduino IED.

The next project I'm going to build will be a scale wagon. If I do it in c++ maybe it could be a module for a combine controller or weight wagon? My contribution? (If it should be done with arduino that would be easier, but I'd still like to learn c++.

Thanks for any guidance you can give me!

Position.cs is under FormGPS which is the main form of the program. It's written in C# dot net 4.5 using Windows Forms as the gui, and using OpenGL as the graphics system.



I would start on youtube, there is so many great tutorials.
 
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