Calibrated Cotton Yield Monitor

Cotton yield monitors are important in identifying the variability of cotton yield to generate yield maps and in determining revenue and profit across farm fields. Multiple yield monitors have been developed and commercialized over roughly two decades, but their reported lack of accuracy and repeatability is a problem that still exists unless painstaking work is done to post correct the data in GIS software. Therefore, a new system was conceived to couple a highly accurate yield-data calibration system with a yield monitor that has proven effective at the research level. The system is comprised of six major components: two mass flow sensors, one field-programmable gate array (FPGA) as a data processing system, the weight-based calibration system, a display, and a GPS receiver. In the combined system, data processing is performed with the FPGA, a highly capable and versatile unit for processing the input/output. The FPGA development board used the System-on-Chip (SoC) FPGA with A/D converter, works as the “brain” of the combined system (a) to receive data from mass flow sensors, the GPS receiver, and the calibration system, (b) to process and store data, and (c) to control the display of the results and communication between all the other components of the system. The data processing system has been programmed and tested, and basic functionality has been accomplished. Software is being redesigned as an upgrade to the cotton yield monitor system. The goal of the study is to complete the combined system to produce a reliable and highly accurate cotton yield monitor. The system will be field tested to prove functionality in sensing, data acquisition, and communication, so that accurate yield information can be recorded, displayed in real time and used to produce high-quality cotton yield maps.