CAN-bus on agricultural machinery: information technology at the service of precision agriculture and traceability

Abstract

Electronic architecture on agricultural mobile equipment will be significantly re-designed thanks to a field bus used for automation purposes in factories: the CAN-bus. Due to its special features, the CAN-bus will be widely used for both mobile and stationary applications (e.g. cars, trucks and ships). Thanks to the CAN-bus, tractors and implements will be able to interchange many kinds of data sets. This will be a way to control implements from the tractor's driver interface so called Virtual Terminal -and also to automatically collect data needed for management. The integration of the CAN-bus on agricultural mobile equipment will constitute a means to carry out the major part of what is needed for precision agriculture and traceability purposes. But this will be really efficient only if manufacturers use the same international standard, in order to design equipment able to interchange data.