access for high - speed whole farm connectivity in precision agriculture q

An analysis of the multispectral image-based precision agriculture technology as used in the US cotton belt was undertaken to identify bottlenecks which limit the delivery and use of this technology. One area in particular was identified: the movement of data and information necessary to implement variable rate applications. Solutions to reduce or eliminate this problem were explored. A new technology called wireless local area networking (or WLAN) was explored. A test farm was selected, a system was designed and implemented, and the resulting implementation was successfully tested. The system wirelessly connected cotton pickers, spray equipment, variable rate fertilized application equipment, and hand-held personal digital assistant computers in the field, allowing for rapid bi-directional movement of data and