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Technology

Satellite Driven Farming Equipment 173

Posted by michael from the judgement-day-that-much-closer dept.
ravenousbugblatter writes "An article at CNN discusses how Australian scientists are using GPS to automatically drive tractors and other farming equipment on predetermined tracks. The technology is encouraged because it can prevent water loss associated with the repeated compaction of soil from heavy farming equipment."
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Satellite Driven Farming Equipment More

Satellite Driven Farming Equipment

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  • I, for one, welcome our new tractor overlords.

    Mike

    • Re:all hail John Deere! (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Not me. I'm installing a tinfoil tractor cab.

    • Re:all hail John Deere! (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I for one welcome our new joke-of-the-month overlords!

      (The Soviet Russia thing is passé for all the trolls now, I guess?)
    • I honestly can't see how this will help the farm industry in preventing soil corrosion, seeing as how farmers barely run their tractors over the same area twice. Although the labor benefits are obvious.

      You'd think there would be a simpler solution that doesn't implement GPS, kinda like those robot lawn mowers, except smart...
    • I find that fascinating. I was visiting relatives in South Georgia, USA. I was checking out the Roundup Resistant Cotton. Amazing stuff, makes weed control real easy when you can get Herbicide on the crop.

      It's crystal clear that advances in Genetics combined with advances in things like automated machinery are gonna make agriculture alot more efficient, and make it where less people have to do the mind numbing work of an agricultural laborer

      Cool Stuff

  • YEEHAW (Score:5, Funny)

    by TheOnyx ( 689726 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @05:59PM (#6474694)
    It's the beginning of the Redneck Skynet!

  • Too bad (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18, 2003 @05:59PM (#6474695)
    They can't control the genetically modified crops with GPS. Then you wouldn't have to worried about your crops becoming infected with someone's IP.

  • Collision Detection (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rf0 ( 159958 ) <rghf@fsck.me.uk> on Friday July 18, 2003 @06:00PM (#6474702) Homepage
    This seems very cool and everything but I wonder how "automatic" these are and do they have any collision detection. I can't help but picture the tractor going along, hitting a kangeroo and then all hell break loose. Never underestimate the unexpected

    Rus
    • Hey, some of those Kangaroos might be equipped with beach balls (or in a funner version of the story, stinger missiles.)

      Long story, military simulation humor.

      • Re:Collision Detection (Score:3, Informative)

        by ncc74656 ( 45571 )
        Hey, some of those Kangaroos might be equipped with beach balls (or in a funner version of the story, stinger missiles.)

        Long story, military simulation humor.

        The story [york.ac.uk]'s not that long. It is funny, though.

    • The large farming equipment my relatives use wouldn't even notice hitting a kangeroo. The article didn't say but any large scale farm uses BIG equipment, small animals - or people - wouldn't even cause a bump.

    • Fortunately, Kangaroos are already equiped with a collision detection and avoidance subsystem sufficient for avoiding slow moving objects like farm implements.

      Children and Pets, however may not be.

    • Re:Collision Detection (Score:3, Interesting)

      by vissy ( 193715 )
      The driver is still required to turn the tractor at the end of each run. After this the driver hits the engage button and the system takes over to steer the tractor to about 2cm accuracy. The driver is responsible for collision detection.

      In the end the driver has reduced fatigue due to not having to make small steering corrections along a run and he can focus more on what his implement at the back is doing, i.e. is it the right height etc.

      As the article says, there are huge benifits to always driving on t
    • This seems very cool and everything but I wonder how "automatic" these are and do they have any collision detection. I can't help but picture the tractor going along, hitting a kangeroo and then all hell break loose.

      And hitting a kangaroo is of course impossible with a human driver?

      Even at Slashdot the demand for security in new technology seems to be 100%. The much more reasonable standard is to demand of new technology that it demands on par with humans. I bet a relatively simple motion detector co
      • And hitting a kangaroo is of course impossible with a human driver?

        You say that like it's a bad thing. One of my greatest joys as a youth out combining grass seed, was watching mice try to run the "combine belt treadmill" and stay out of the spinning jaws of the thresher.

        Does this make me sick?

    • Well they have been doing the 'non-automatic' version of it for years. People have the daily readouts of their fields and cane basically drive their equipment like it was a oceanliner.
    • Haven't been near any farm equipment lately, eh?

    • This not exactly new ... or unique to the Aussies ... at the University of California at Davis they have an automated machine that goes around the rows of vegetation picking up the buckets of picked fruit.

      While this may seem silly, nothing treats the fruit as gently as the human hand ... but immigrant Mexican workers are getting really bad back problems lifting around these buckets, and they get screwed b/c they have no medical care or legal recourse. The goal of the project is to make the bucket picker u

  • Much, much worse (Score:3, Funny)

    by creative_name ( 459764 ) <pauls@nospaM.ou.edu> on Friday July 18, 2003 @06:00PM (#6474703)
    Repeated compaction and water loss might be a problem, but just wait until one of these badboys gets out of hand and ends up mowing down some precious kangaroo farm. Then we'll see who gives a damn about how compact their soil is.

    Just you wait.
    • Just imagine how many hooligans are going to be leaving compacted soil samples in their drawers after stumbling onto a field and having an automated farm equipment nearly run them over.
    • ummmm...well....okay....here goes....

      If it where my kangaroo farm i'd be hopping mad. ...sorry

    • Kangaroo farm? Most farms in Australia are kangaroo farms by default. Red and Eastern Grey Kangaroos are generally at "plague" proportions due to increased access to water (dams, bores), increase in pasture lands and fertilisers. If we can develop a bigger market for kangaroo meat and skins, they indeed would become precious.

      I myself prefer to cook a 1.5 cm thick slab of roo meat in a pan with olive oil, cooking it to medium rare.

  • Does it detect when people or animals are in the way?
  • ...are we digging ourselves into now with technology?

    As they say, as you reap so will you sow.

  • Now they'll have to figure out how to prevent property loss associated with the repeated compaction of buildings from heavy misguided farming equipment...
    • Now they'll have to figure out how to prevent property loss associated with the repeated compaction of buildings from heavy misguided farming equipment...

      Around my area the problem is the opposite: Farm loss from heavily misguided construction.

  • This is a very bad idea. I hear GPS gives coords. backwards in the land down under. =P

  • we need satellites for this? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nunya_biznez ( 527963 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @06:03PM (#6474723) Homepage
    "The technology is encouraged because it can prevent water loss associated with the repeated compaction of soil from heavy farming equipment."

    Couldn't the same thing be achived by simply not driving in the ruts?

    -- I stole this sig off some old git

    • Couldn't the same thing be achived by simply not driving in the ruts?

      Or by having a robot eye follow a white line.

      • Or by having a robot eye follow a white line.

        Which is...

        ...painted directly on the ground -> Easily washes away and is impossible to see when the crops are grown.

        ...Laid out on top of the crops each season -> wasn't the whole point of this to save labor by not having to drive around the field every year?

        Tor
    • Couldn't the same thing be achived by simply not driving in the ruts?

      The engineering practice of only measuring differences from a starting position is dangerous because in the way errors build up. For example, if your 'route recorder' makes a 2 inch error every time the tractor turns around for a new run, these errors add up so that the at the end of the day your robot tractor may be a couple of feet outside of the field. In other words, you have no control of where you are, other than a long series of
    • I think the point is to drive in the same rut, over and over, rather than driving these multi-tonned rigs over new ground.
    • Certain crops are grown in rows (or furrows) where the dirt is mounded up in rows, the crops are planted in the mounded rows and then water is either applied, or in the case of dryland farming, captured from rain.

      When dealing with rowed crops, you pretty much have to drive your tractors down the rows. In fact, since some crops are planted at different row widths, one of the things I got frequently saddled with as a kid was helping Dad jack up the tractors, and using gigantic wrenches to widen and narrow t

    • I don't think the Australian farmers have any plans to launch their own satellite constellation :)

      They're already there, accessible via commodity hardware, with no usage fee. I don't understand your concern.

  • until sadam acts up again... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by edrugtrader ( 442064 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @06:03PM (#6474725) Homepage
    during the war, my acura GPS would be off by a 1/5th of a mile or so... watch out for tractors gone wild in your backyard.
    • I took a course in surveying a couple years ago at university; the US gov't has a masking signal they can apply to gps satellites to give purposely inaccurate data. It essentially changes the coordinate values by a random number, and the results can put you out by as much as 200 m. As soon as this signal was switched off, you were good to a mere couple meters. I don't, however, know how they're getting accuracy to less than an inch.
    • listen do-da....these tractors are using N00b brand GPS units from Wal-Mart. They use $60k+ equipment using a realtime corrected signal, either from WAAS or Omnistar. Contrary to popular belief, non-military GPS isn't in the stone ages anymore and we can get a lot closer than a football fields margin of accuracy.
    • during the war, my acura GPS would be off by a 1/5th of a mile or so... watch out for tractors gone wild in your backyard.

      So, is that better or worse than "girls gone wild" in my backyard?

  • Wait a second... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18, 2003 @06:03PM (#6474727)
    ...Possibly this can explain those crop circles coming in from outer space...

  • Crop Circles (Score:5, Funny)

    by zachster ( 677285 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @06:04PM (#6474731) Homepage Journal
    This innovation should advance the artistry of crop circles immesurably. No longer must we risk capture and incarceration in persuit of out artistic dreams. Now our wildest imaginings can be realized all from the comfort of our satelite relay stations.

    I offer a $100K reward to the first hack who can build me am etch-a-sketch driven combine.
    • I offer a $100K reward to the first hack who can build me am etch-a-sketch driven combine.
      Unfortunately, they will have to become "crop-squares" as drawing circles with an etch-a-sketch is near-impossible.
      • Now, now. Let's not rob our friend the etch-a-sketch of it's artistic due:

        http://www.etch-a-sketch.com/html/artgallery.htm

        Had Michaelangelo such a versatile tool, who knows what the ceiling of the sistine chappel might look like?
        • Had Michaelangelo such a versatile tool, who knows what the ceiling of the sistine chappel might look like?

          I'm picturing a monochromic gray, accented with thin black lines.

  • not surprising (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They have already been using GPS to distribute seed/fertilizer/pesticide/etc. in varying amounts in a given field for quite some time. Now they are just letting it drive I guess.
  • I'd hear the phrase "space age tractors" in my lifetime... but we've reached such great technological innovation I marvel at future possibilities.

  • Fatigue (Score:5, Informative)

    by jimmer63 ( 651486 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @06:05PM (#6474742)
    This could also be a great help to reduce fatigue related accidents on farms. I have friends that are farmers and during harvest times they routinely work 18+ hours driving harvesting machinery. Often a worker falls asleep at the wheel and has caused thousands of dollars in damage, not to mention the potential for human injuries or death. These tractors could keep these routine tasks safer and maybe in the long run cheaper too.

    • Re:Fatigue (Score:1, Insightful)

      by mxn ( 562786 ) *
      And your friends will be be able to sleep all day long, for they will no longer have jobs.
    • Yeah this should reduce the potential for human injury because the people that use to drive the tractors/combines will be at the local bar drinking away the sorrows of losing their jobs.

    • This could also be a great help to reduce fatigue related accidents on farms. I have friends that are farmers and during harvest times they routinely work 18+ hours driving harvesting machinery. Often a worker falls asleep at the wheel and has caused thousands of dollars in damage, not to mention the potential for human injuries or death.

      Okay. Now, for a dose of reality. Ever seen on TV how they have the machines lined up in a row, one after the other? Now, remove the driver, put in a GPS-navigation s

  • nothing new (Score:3, Informative)

    by chipster ( 661352 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @06:07PM (#6474752)
    this has already been in use in the Midwest for some time now...at least experimentally.

    GPS has been used in farming for a decade, and is fantastic for saving $$$ on fertilizers (liquid) and other farming tasks.

  • Alas, we may see Darth Vader controlling farming equipment with his tractor beam.

    Man, I can't wait until they use this to make a bigger version of Robot Wars. :)

  • Information Please? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Buzz_Litebeer ( 539463 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @06:08PM (#6474763) Journal
    I was looking at this, and despite the funny jokes about a redneck skynet, and all hail the rise of the john deer overlords, I do have a couple serious questions.

    In kansas a lot of the farmed land in the north western parts of kansas is non-uniform. People tend to have this idea of kansas as being a flat area, but the land is actually quite hilly in the western parts.

    What happens if a tractor slips or loses traction? Or do the tractors simply not operate when it is muddy? How much error detection and fixiing do these tractors have. What happens if it finds itself on a part of a field it shouldnt be on, IE its transmitter goes out for a short period of time due to electrical disturbance (say freak lightning or something else).

    Does the tractor drive across tilled land to get back to the spot (possibly destroying crops) or does it know to re-orient itself, drive along the right path, and then proceed about its task.

    What happens if there is a hardware failure, is it possible to set a new tractor right where the last one set off, or does it need to go through the entire process again?

    these things werent answered very well in the article, but are very obvious questions i think that should pop up to someone who read the article.

  • Not exactly new... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by leshert ( 40509 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @06:08PM (#6474765) Homepage
    My former boss [cmu.edu] worked on something like this years ago, although if I recall correctly, it was based on dead reckoning and computer vision, not GPS.

  • SA? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by outernet ( 680963 )
    Hmm, what happens when Gulf War III starts, and the US turns SA back on? (Selective Availability, undetectable errors added to readings). Could be interesting...

    • Re:SA? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Mr_KnowItAll ( 20538 )
      SA introduces an error, but it's not undetectable if you have a reference station in the vicinity. This two-station Differential GPS (DGPS) approach is pretty much essential for any precision work such as earth moving, and these systems are quite common these days.

      The autonomous vehicle technology described in the article is not very interesting compared to something happening stateside, the DARPA Grand Challenge. On March 13th, 2004, vehicles will set out on a race from a point near Los Angeles and head
    • The new sats may not be able to turn it back on the way it had been. S/A is pointless anyway the way it was done since there are much better ways of keeping the other guys from using GPS such as local area jamming. Modern recivers can all do DGPS which bypasses the SA induced errors. Remember the US Air Force took out a russian jammer in Iraq with a GPS guided bomb. Also with WAAS now live, there is no way they AF will turn on SA and risk the political mess that would cause. They have better ways and S

  • GPS guided machinery (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Pompatus ( 642396 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @06:12PM (#6474787) Journal
    As great is this might be to farmers in australia, my question is how long will it take to automate my lawn care?

    It's great fun to spend half a day getting drunk to ignore extream heat while mowing your lawn, but i'll bet people would buy lawnmowers that would do it for you.

    This might also eliminate that neighbor that has the fortitude to wake up at 7:00 am on saturday to cut his lawn.
    • As great is this might be to farmers in australia, my question is how long will it take to automate my lawn care?

      There is already something like this. It doesn't use gps (it uses wires similar to pet invisible fences) and an algorithm that produces a "random" path. But it effectively does what you want, to mow the lawn for you so you don't have to.

      RoboMower [friendlyrobotics.com]
  • I wonder how soon we'll see an automated lawnmower for ordinary yards and lawns. I've seen the vacuum cleaner that senses obstacles, allowing it to vacuum a room unattended. Seems like mowing a lawn wouldn't be too much different. Of course, you'd have to define boundaries, because, unlike an indoor room, there might not be solid walls at the edge of the lawn.

  • advantages of using GPS (Score:5, Informative)

    by BlueTrin ( 683373 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @06:15PM (#6474806) Homepage Journal

    I used to work in a farm and I can say that adding altitude can give you a whole new perspective about what's going on in your fields. Over the years, there have been a number of attempts at using images gathered from airplanes and satellites to enhance scouting

    These images provided some interesting views, but were never timely enough to be useful for making management decisions. Plus, the equipment was not readily available to make a pass when you needed it made.

    The only option growers had for aerial scouting that provided immediate information was to learn to fly themselves. For most, the cost of flying lessons and airplanes meant that wasn't a very practical option.

    Now new technology is opening the door for more immediate, more useful aerial information about your crops. And if you just want to fly over your fields to see how they look from above, that's becoming easier and more affordable, too.

    After years of promise that satellites would revolutionize crop scouting, recent developments are turning promise into reality.

    Aerial photos can be especially useful for mapping fields in remote areas. A group of ranchers and groups interested in resource management in Wyoming have been working together the past five years to gather aerial images of rangeland in areas that are not readily accessible by ground.

    It can be used like in WHIPP program, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Lake DeSmet Conservation District are using aerial imagery to map leafy spurge locations in a 54,000-acre area.

    Leafy spurge is a perennial noxious weed that's spreading on rangelands. Cattle won't eat it and herbicides provide inconsistent control so they're trying to develop an integrated weed management program.

  • How odd (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Nidhogg ( 161640 ) <shr...thanatos@@@gmail...com> on Friday July 18, 2003 @06:16PM (#6474815) Journal
    I work for Cat dealer and I was told about this some months ago by our Agriculture Manager. It's already offered in the Challenger MT700 models. In fact there are already quite a few in operation. And oh by the way, John Deere (enemy!), is also offering it in some models.

    Depending on how much you want to spend on these tractors you can have an accuracy down to 8 inches per pass in the field.

    Of course when he told me this all I could think of was Evil Plan #234.

    1. Hack the Omnistar system.
    2. Assume control of all Challenger tractors in Indiana.
    3. Plow under Terre Haute.

    Hey we all have our own little dreams...
    • Strange, my Evil Plan #234 is nothing like that. Mine involves using all those remotely controlled farming machines to carve/plow/mark giant paid ads into the arth visible from airplanes.

      Step 2: Profit!

      Okay, either ads or profanity. Anything but 'first post'.
  • I'm holding out for Farm-driven satellite equipment.... dust your crops from space!

  • Exodous (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Thunderstruck ( 210399 )
    I come from a long line of farming folk. I've farmed with my folks, they farm, their folks farmed with other farming folks....

    Modern farming folks, armed with this system will need fewer folks around the farm. Fewer folks in the area means a smaller demand for services, so more folks will leave. Finally, fewer and fewer folks will fill the rural landscape.

    Will this technology be the nail in the coffin of rural life in the midwestern states, requiring only a few folks to farm for everyone?

    What happens
    • What happens to the rest of the folks in more populated states when the system crashes and there are too few farmers to farm fields the hard way?

      That's why the government keeps a secret stash of Amish folk in suspended animation.
    • I'm not sure where your family farms, but in the Miss. Delta where we do our farming (cotton, soybeans, rice) it's getting very difficult to find reliable farm hands. I for one would welcome the opportunity to dismiss half of the crystal meth monkeys we employ.

  • Yep (Score:2)

    by heli0 ( 659560 )
    This story [fastcompany.com], covered by slashdot last week, is a lot more detailed.

  • unintended consequences... (Score:4, Funny)

    by sstory ( 538486 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @06:25PM (#6474854) Homepage
    Be careful about how the "Home" button's programmed.

  • Weee! (Score:2)

    by Ridge ( 37884 )
    It's all fun and games until little Billy and his pals are playing Children of the Corn and get chopped up by a combine or somesuch. A human should probably be left in the loop...
  • It's all fun and games until Pauly Shore hacks the guidance system and writes "Crawl" in 50 foot cursive letters across the back 40...

    --riney

  • Please explain more... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by switcha ( 551514 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @06:35PM (#6474902)
    I, for one, didn't see anything in there about how it improves over an experienced farmer who can drive a tractor well.

    From the article i got the sense these were just modified regular tractors, not some lightwieght version that reduces compaction.

    I invite you to go look at any farmer's (try my dad) row crops. The furrows on fields of row crops such as carrot seed and garlic are laser straight, and they travel the same furrows when working the field all season long. Growing up, Dad used to let me try to cultivate a row at the very edge of the field (where it was easy for him to fix) and it was always a disaster. However after years of doing it, my dad and many of the farmers in our area had it down to where you could look all the way down a 1/4 mile field and see only inches of deviation.

    Furthermore, even if someone had some wandering furrows, it's just a matter of staying in them when doing work in the field as the crop grows (spraying, etc).

    I can see a system that uses lighter machinery or allows few passes over a field in a season, but if we're talking about driving the same tractors by different methods, aside from the convenience, I don't see how it would yield the spectacular result quoted. Unless they were comparing their tractors to one driven by complete novices who wander all over the field (too much Fosters?)

    • The point with the new systems is that the rows are in the exact same spots every year. Since most of Australia's farm land is qucikly turning into the Oklahoma dustbowl (isn't it great to see history repeat?), they have to do whatever they can to keep the soil from blowing away. What they are doing involves alternating rows of crops so you have a row of food, then a row of some plant that takes little water and provides wind resistance sort of like mini-treelines. The result is you need to harvest the cr
  • So the farmer rides around in his remotely-piloted tractor/combine/whatever all day, and since he doesn't have to steer, he can just sit in there in his air conditioned vehicle drinking beer and watching DVDs. Sounds nice! It's almost enough to make one become a farmer...except for all the alien abductions and their anal probes and heyheyhey that hurts me!

    The downside to this automation: It makes the premise of Maximum Overdrive that much more plausible. I mean, if it was just confined to homocidal soda ma

  • Similarly (Score:2, Informative)

    by eskimoboy ( 690127 )
    I recently read an article [technologyreview.com] in MIT's Technology Review discussing something similar. It looks like NASA is working on something similar, and for a similar purpose, although different in implementation. Finally, agriculture is getting into advanced new electronics with great ideas backed by government.

  • similar projects (Score:2, Informative)

    by weeroona ( 465619 )
    the NREC at carnegie mellon has been working on automated tractors [cmu.edu] for a while now.

    I worked there in 2000 and the best part was the big red button on the front. it was a little odd having my computer space 20 feet from a tractor with gizmos.

  • Motivation (Score:3, Informative)

    by femto ( 459605 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @08:37PM (#6475691) Homepage
    At least part of the motivation for this research is that Australia generally has the poorest soils in the world. The rocks and soil are so old here that for the most part, there just aren't many nutrients left, since they've been leeched out over the millennia. Consequently, soil degradation, salinity and erosion are big topics here. Slowly our argicultural industry is realising they need to address these issues (with things like GPS tractors) otherwise there wil be no soil left for them to farm.
    • Very good point. Australia also has some of the most arid agricultural regions in the world. Consequently irrigation is critical and this leads to excess stress on systems like the Murry/Darling as well as serious salinity problems.

      Now - if Australians could harness the torrential rains that sometimes inundate Sydney and Brissy as well as some of the NT then maybe some of these problems could be solved.

      But this would sort of consitute "terraforming a sub-continent" I suppose and the Aussie tree huggers
  • I have to say I think this is a pretty good idea... but...

    Farm machinery and computers just don't mix. It sounded like a great idea when they started to put computers into tractors, but it has been nothing but a nightmare to farmers. Wires get too warm and fry or make contact all the time under the hood blowing out chips, dirt gets into the electronics themselves and causes them to quit working. When this happens, can Mr. Farmer fix it? No, it is like a modern vehicle. Mr. Farmer usually has to pay some pr
    • I don't think you know very much about tractors and farming in general. All farm equipment breaks down. It isn't more likely to break down because it happens to have a computer in it unless the computer is not rugedized enuf for the job.

      You also reveal your ignorance when you suggest that a "programmer" would have to drive 300KM's to replace the chip. I can assure you that most farmers I know can easily deal with a "chip" that needs to be replaced. If the "chip" only cost $5 bux they would keep some on

  • Yay for GPS.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Large Green Mallard ( 31462 ) <lgm@theducks.org> on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:04AM (#6477084) Homepage
    No joke, just yesterday, I was standing on the greenwich meridian (a big steel line in the ground in Greenwich England) and my eTrex GPS said that the meridian was about 100 metres away, even after staying in the same spot for about 10 minutes, and it claiming accuracy of 7 metres from 6 satellites.

    As handy as GPS is, I don't entirely trust it :>
  • It is so amasing how much total CRAP the media puts out. This story is no exception!

    First off, driving a tractor is rather boring and even more so when you consider that tilling the soil can take 12 hours per field. So a GPS driven tractor is valuable for one reason and one reason ONLY! It largely removes the need for an operator. Drive by wireless would also do the job and for instance INCO is using this in its underground mines. Surface mining systems are also under development.

    The downside of the

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