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Research on Mobile Mapping System and its Application in Precision Agriculture


4.2 Mobile Mapping System in Precision Agriculture
For precision farming, information technologies are so essential that Mobile Mapping System is important or beneficial. Equipped with mapping sensors and navigation sensors, Mobile Mapping System can collect field data anytime, anywhere, in any manner. At the same time, Mobile Mapping System can connected with a GIS or combine GIS software in its mobile terminals directly. Thus Mobile Mapping System can monitor planting process all along. Moreover it can contrast multi-temporal data collected or stored in database and find what changes occurred, where, when and how, then give an efficient plant plan. What function the Mobile Mapping System has in precision agriculture is narrated in Figure 2.


Figure 2 Function of Mobile Mapping System in precision agriculture

Improve the Accuracy of Soil Sampling
Soil conditions and soil quality influence crop growth greatly. Usually how often do farmers fertilize the soil or water the land depends on the soil conditions and plant type. So it is a basic work to master the soil conditions. From the view of precision agriculture, soil is different meter by meter. Thereby soil sampling becomes the foundation step. The accuracy of soil sampling is requested higher.

Accuracy of soil sampling refers mainly to accurate degree of the position information where the soil samples were taken. With the accurate knowledge about the coordinate location of the soil samples, a soil data layer can be developed accordingly. With the accurate position information, navigating back to those locations for re-sampling is possible.

Mobile Mapping System has equipped navigation sensors, such as GPS and INS, so the time and position information can be recorded at the same time when soil samples are taken. Consequently a soil difference map can be create, on which physical attribute of soil is described.

Plant Growth, Diseases and Insect Pests Monitor
Generally precision agriculture is constructed in a large area. Hereby it is impossible for all plants growing in like manner. Sometime only a single part suffers the diseases and insect pests. Then it is unnecessary and even harmful for all plants to spray pesticide or other medicine in the same way. Different solution should be taken according to the real conditions of plants.

Mobile Mapping System can finish the monitor task of all the plants. Using the scanners, the peculiar plants can be found quickly, and its position also can be recorded. In fact satellite remote sensing data also can provide such distinction information. Compare with Mobile Mapping System, its spatial range is much larger but space resolution is lower and constrained by satellite calendar.

Analysis of the Crop and Field Information
The purpose to get so much data about the soil, plant and so on is to master the planting conditions and to make decisions for all planting process. Accordingly GIS and Agriculture Expert System are usually imported in precision agriculture in order to edit, process, integrate and analyze the crop and field information and get corresponding resolve scheme.

Mobile Mapping System may Load multi-source information and different types of agricultural data to master the conditions of the field. Comparing the information or data, relationships within and between data sets can be found. That is the relationships among different factors can be made certain. By the relation, agronomist or Agriculture Expert System can make production plan.

After the production plan has been made, farmers can command the farming machines to work automatically, for these machines has been equipped intelligent implement and positioning devices. Moreover the entire process of one year farming also can be recorded and evaluated, and the experience can be analyzed to help next year work.

5. Discussion
Mobile Mapping System is never a concept. Many applied Mobile Mapping Systems have been studying in many counties, and some have been used in practice. The Photogrammetric lab of the Institute of Geomatics at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology has developed a helicopter based portable handheld MMS for avalanche mapping. The Institute of Remote Sensing Applications of Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a multi-sensor mapping system called Airborne Laser-Ranging and Multi-Spectral Imaging Mapping System (ALMIMS). It is clear that Mobile Mapping System can be used in many fields. There are many such samples. Its application in precision agriculture can be identified as available and efficient in this paper.

Mobile Mapping System technological development speed is still very rapid reasonably. With the development of spatial information technology and modern communication, as well as the advance in computer hardware and software technologies, Mobile Mapping System will explore new areas of applications and become more intelligent, efficient and steady. It may run online GIS module for an unmanned aerial vehicle, motion innovative intelligent traffic management and service, etc.

References
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