thanks for the info… so if you want to read a tag you have to have a separate module… the grove module is like $16… you can buy 2 xiao for that price… in this case this person is working… i am wondering if a better way… like reading a bar code instrad of all these tags on trees like christmas ornimants
probably the gps could tell you exactly what tree you are standing by… and do away with the tag idea
also i got hundreds of these used Freestyle Libre CGM’s that might be for something if someone could reprogram them… i think it can be done with a microscope and test points
Yeah, the included NFC antenna connector in the Wio-WM1110 is only for it to act as a tag not for reading, I would need the module.
What I have envision is to use my tracker as a NFC reader too, leave a tag in each banana tree to control its life cycle and to control finite steps we have until we harvest them, and maybe beyond that – it depends on my ability to make this real .
@cgwaltney thanks I’ll definitely need some help there if follow the NFC route.
I’ve thought about using only the GPS/time and based on that day labor to kind of determine which trees have work done, I would need to run so tests based on accuracy and collected data but if possible I’m not creating a tropical Christmas village.
I’m currently learning about the Kalman Filter Algorithm to see if I can get away with the GPS-only approach. Better prepare myself prior I get the trackers so I can start processing the data.
Hi there,
NFC , or Barcode same thing in the case of a tag, The growers in CO. track the green corn from seed to Bag. the Key to ALL of these systems is the data and how it is collected and held. The kalman filter is a statistics algorithm for system with a lot of noisy data to smooth it, We use it with the IMU on the Nrf52840 Xiao to get the data from the accelerometer.
I would consider this basic configuration:
Hi there,
That is just an example and it could be any sensor to complete the loop, of course the Microcontroller could be a myriad of devices any of the Xiao’s, the T1000E or Wio-terminal
the NFC portion could be WiFi or BLE also. Just a overview look at the whole system.
You could do a similar thing with BLE and just advertise the Plant#, Location Data & Sensor data as the advertisement. With BLE5.2 there’s AOA and better beacon tracking. With WiFi 6 there is also something similar & Mesh.
SOme things to consider would be do you have to visit each plant to obtain the data(fly drone) or use a golf cart. How much data payload? i.e. what is the data, moisture, PH, Sunlight, age.?
So with a barcode you would have to do a lot of the data collection and enter to a database.
the barcode would only be a serial no. or Plant number ID.
It’s more applicable to Inventory control , scanning in and out.
A good friend had a Mango farm close to me, 38 different varieties, about 3 acres.
we started with five trees , the special ones. Tracked moisture, sunlight, PH and Number of fruits. In five years we learned which trees did better in which locations (higher & dryer or Lower & wetter.) Because some were early some were ready in the middle of the summer, the rest late and over winter months. 3 seperate flowering periods and 3 harvest. He had Lychee also one time a year my wife loves them and a berry called a Miracle fruit.
Meanwhile the data was raw sensor data i/o and he ran statistical analysis and overlaid it with plant growth location data. It rains a lot here april and may some years supper heavy. If you put Trees in the right spots we found b4 hand WOW the growth would be banging and the fruit would always be nicer quality. I got my mango trees from his farm when he sold it for 10x what he paid… The new owners cut down more than half of the grove. (morons IMO) they own a landscaping business, have many big trucks parked where some of the best fruit I ever ate used to grow.
My original idea is scoped to manage different states of work to be done for each plant, so for any given day I have schedule let’s say remove suckers task.
Someone enters the area with a GPS tracker (given that someone already had attached a NFC Card to each banana bunch / or tree if the bunch is not big enough yet).
Then he does his work.
Reads the card.
Moves on with the next tree.
For now, I’m working on the GPS only approach side since I can use my phone to start getting coordinates data.
I’ve configured a MQTT mosquitto server to send my current position directly from the browser, I’ve configured a grid polygon area, basically just check if it is inside of any given tile inside the polygon and show it with OpenLayers and Mapbox projection in the browser.
I’m unable to upload images in my posts but I have a super simple demo working, I can’t wait to get the trackers and gateway to start fiddling with them.
thats why it is important to reply and heart peoples posts so you get engagement points… and sometimes the OP gets engagememt points too!
have you studied the cost of the tags?.. can something like a bar code or QR code be used?
maybe epaper tags…lol just kidding
I did cotton bowl weaveling many years ago and we used bar codes… whe had a print conpany make us a roll of serial number stickers and we placed them on the plastic housing of the trap… we had a hand held laser reader we could scan…
Have you found the location for your M2 yet? are you going to put it in a high place? I also wanted to try setting up a gps static base station… it would communicate with bluetooth to the rover to provide static gps data to make the rover gps location more precise
I only have a stable power supply connection at the very south edge of my patch of land but it’s in the middle of the width of the whole place, it’s definitely not the tallest place but I’m already reviewing the things I would need to setup my gateway.
I’m thinking of installing a solid pole to avoid the extra hardware and price of setting up a different antenna pole system (I have seen some impressive 6 meters high stainless steel poles, not sure but I think it can work), I would be installing there my Starlink antenna too.
For the Gateway I’m planning of buying the outdoor case and since the gateway supports PoE I’ll be buying an adapter for my router so I can use a single cable. Also, I’m reviewing the different antennas I can attach to ensure good connection but I have seen that the 5.8dBi matches nicely with my requirements.
Then the lighting protection, I see that seeedstudio sells one for the gateway, but I think I would need to setup a different one since I have my Starlink antenna too.
Hi there,
Why would this be a thing?
Op is using a tracking as a work process. the location of it is Static(doesn’t change)
however the STATUS of the WORK process does, several stages I would think.(i.e. remove Suckers / Harvest / Replant for a brief example) each stage requires a number of WORK “functions” to be performed. Remove Suckers, may involve shovel,manchette, wheelbarrow and a new Plant # / Grid & GPS location to replant the removed suckers as a new plant start.
All along these lines you can see where I was going with the automation on the code side.
So if I flew a drone over the area I could collect all the pertinent Plant data and even update the plant work Data in real-time. Only requires the ability to feedback to both plant sensor base(t1000E)? and base unit(???).
HTH
GL PJ
GPS has a thing called RTK Real Time Kenimatics… it basicly says that because the satalites are so high and far apart and moving so fast, it is difficult to get down to the sub-meter level accuracy… so they need a static base station to correct the data in real time to get maximum accuracy… GPS accuracy is in the 3-15 meter range, with maximum satalite visibility in the sky so lets say you have a static, local gps base sation and it knows its coordinates are 0,0,0 then it will be recieving the GPS “Opinion” of where it is… lets say the GPS says the coordinates are 10,10,10… then the local sends out a correction message… saying at time 10:00:00 the local correction is -10,-10,-10… this correction will be applied to the GPS “Opinion” of the location of the rover… lets say it thinks it is at 50,50,50… it will correct to actual position of 40,40,40…
the whole point is… if he is trying to get exact locations of trees or bunches of bannana, and return to the exact bannana each time and be able to differentiate between data aquired on multiple bannana on the same tree… this RTK level GPS data will be needed for that kind of accuracy… the professional systems are really expensive because they use this information… also now the cloud is collecting this corrective data and publishing this data as a service… anyway… that is my basic understanding…
Cell Phones and other things are able to do back end calculations to provide greater location precision than the GPS itself can provide… but this precision is not necessarily accurate. Scienticly, Precision and Accuracy are not exactly the same thing… the phone IMU provides extra feedback of the motion of the rover device… which is compaired to the GPS data… the brain says… the IMU says we have not moved… so any change in the GPS “Assumed Position” must be an error… and this error is the local correction… if that makes sense… thats why i hate when computers are doing things in the background that i dont know it is doing…
That would be the reason ( i am assuming) tags, be them RF, Barcode or QR Code, would be needed… so you come to your tree or whatever and “scan” it, and it loads the serial number for the record… I think we were talking that maybe the GPS position would be able to remove the need for a tag and the record could be ID by the position… but the GPS position will always be fluctuating, both because you are never standing in the exact same position, and the satalites are never in the exact same position, and the GPS “Opinion” of the position is not the exact same… So there would always be a “Tolerable Positional Resolution”… the question being is this positional resolution tolerable for the application. If not, the bar code or tag would be required.
one of those technology that other people have done… but I never have done… so i would like to see if i could reproduce their results… but more of a bucket wish list item than a personal neccesity i was think coding this using XIAO with GPS and Bluetooth would be something dooable as a science fair project… If it would help him for his project I might put more focus on it… but it is one of the projects i already have the hardware for… in a box… around here… somewhere…lol
I’m using a docker Mosquitto image running on my Raspberry Pi 5 – I’m currently using a Cloudflare tunnel service to securely expose it to the outside world.
.
PJ 
