Smart action

In this chapter, the smart actions for precision agriculture (PA) are presented. With smart actions, resources such as irrigation, fertilizer, pesticides and available time are utilized effectively. The decision support system for smart actions presented in this chapter will support farmers to properly perform agricultural tasks and yield with minimal waste and minimal environmental impacts, better agricultural outputs and outcomes. The chapter is divided into two parts: (Section 5.1) Implementation of Variable Rate Application (VRA) and (Section 5.2) Smart Collaborative Robotics and Cyber-Physical System (CPS) for Smart Precision. In the first one (Section 5.1), the VRA is discussed. The VRA helps to reduce waste from over/underapplication of agricultural input resources by implementing precision application technologies. With VRA, once the status of plants is known, the precision crop need-based actions can be taken properly in real time. For the second part (Section 5.2), Collaborative Control Protocols for Robotics and CPS (CCP-CPS) are presented. The protocols have the objective of synchronizing system agents so that the agents will collaboratively perform agricultural tasks both globally and locally, such as monitoring the status of plants in a greenhouse. The cyber-supported collaboration among agents can enable the system to most effectively utilize available resources. Lastly, smart actions will improve the overall agricultural system performance and will drive us closer to the PA and smart farming, by applying the right amount of resources in the right time at the right place.