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Cedar Rapids, Iowa | The technology does exist, but what is practical? You could use a standard 802.11 wireless network in a mesh configuration in the field. Price would be relatively cheap for the networking gear, but you would be limited to about 300 feet between machines. If you had two machines cutting wheat round-and-round on a quarter section, they could be on opposite sides of the field and never be able to sync. To work around this, you could throw another computer on the grain cart to transfer the data back and fourth between them. Unfortunately this isn't going to be timely enough to always have the data needed to do swath control on the combines.
Another solution would be to use a cell phone internet connection and have each machine replicate back to some central server on the Internet. Do a sync every 5-10 seconds, and it would be timely enough to do swath control. The hardware and access fees are going to add up though.
The military probably uses a central point to replicate to, and the network connection is satellite based. They can't risk depending on any third party provider such as a cell phone company, especially in remote areas of the world. | |
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