Development of automatic soil sampling system

精确农业是未来农业发展的新技术，它可以减少环境负荷，实现农业的可持续发展。特别是农田土壤条件是最重要的指标或信息之一。已完成土壤采样以分析土壤条件。然而，由于土壤取样是手工进行的，因此需要花费大量的时间。本研究正是针对这一问题而提出的技术挑战，其目标是研制土壤自动采样系统，并于2004年完成了土壤自动采样系统样机的研制。该系统连接到拖拉机上。该系统由取土旋转部分、土壤输送部分和土壤取样保存部分组成。一台与GPS（全球定位系统）相连的PC控制该系统。由于采用了基于GPS数据的间歇式控制土壤采样罐，保证了土壤采样的恒定距离。2005 ~ 2006年，对土壤采样的精确定位和土壤运输部分的控制系统进行了改进，使土壤采样时拖拉机不需要停止运行，工作速度达到1 m/s。在此基础上，研究了土壤含水量、pH值和电导率的实时传感。利用所开发的土壤采样系统，对土壤进行了田间特性（N、P、K、EC、pH）的制图，大大缩短了土壤采样的时间。该系统利用GPS坐标系统对土壤采样点进行坐标变换，便于土壤图的制作。

The Precision Agriculture seems to be a new technology for the future agriculture for the reduction of the environmental load and the sustainable agriculture. Especially, the soil conditions of the agricultural field are one of the most important indices or information. The soil sampling has been achieved to analyze the soil conditions. However, it takes much time for the soil sampling because the work is by hand. This research is the technical challenge to solve this problem, and the objective is to develop the automatic soil sampling system.The prototype of the automatic soil sampling system was developed in 2004. This system is attached to a tractor. This system consists of the rotary part for getting the pulverized soil, the soil transport part and the soil sampling and keeping part. A PC connected with GPS (Global Positioning System) controls this system. Because the can which is used to collect the soil was intermittently controlled based on GPS data, the soil sampling of the constant distance is guaranteed. The tractor does not have to stop its running during the soil sampling, and the working speed of 1 m/s is attained.The precise positioning of the soil sampling and the control system of the soil transportation part for keeping of the enough amount of the soil were improved in 2005 to 2006. Furthermore, the real-time sensing of the soil moisture content, pH and EC (Electronic Conductivity) was studied. The soil maps of the field characteristics (N,P,K,EC,pH) were produced from the sampled soil using the developed soil sampling system.The developed system saves the time of the soil sampling. The soil maps are easily produced using this system because of coordinating the soil sampled position data by GPS.