Kazan Irrigation Equipment Plant, LLC, is a large enterprise in the Republic of Tatarstan that produces machinery, equipment and tools for agriculture.
The Plant decided to apply remote monitoring and control technologies to its equipment. The lack of this functionality had previously made it less competitive as compared to European manufacturers like Valley and Bauer. In addition, the Irrigation Equipment Plant needed a monitoring system to grant designated officials from the Ministry of Agriculture access to statistics on the commissioning of equipment received by farms on subsidies.
Key Challenges
- Deploying a monitoring and control system for agricultural machinery
Solution
Implemented our solution
- The ICL Services team has developed a hardware and software system (HSS) for remote monitoring and control of irrigation plants. The HSS includes a hardware monitoring and control module based on an industrial controller with a hybrid wireless data channel, as well as software in the form of a web application.
The web application is based on the IoT Platform, previously developed by ICL Services experts. It has an adaptive layout, which eliminates the need to develop a mobile client or design a separate version of the web interface. Thus, it is possible to control the equipment via both a desktop computer and a smartphone.
Unlike its competitors with existing solutions, the ICL Services team used a GPS/GLONASS-based approach to determine the geolocation of the machinery's moving end, which requires no calibration of the position on the ground.
Transmission of data on the moving end's geolocation is based on the LoRa standard. This has reduced cable procurement expenses and eliminated the need to lay the cable, which can be quite problematic given the size of some machines.
The control unit is designed to be able to retrofit machines that have already been put into operation.
One of the advantages of the project was the use of essential components that are available for purchase and delivery in sufficient quantities.
This solution has given plant employees and end users full access to monitoring the state of machinery, as well as setting up and managing equipment remotely. In the monitoring app, you can see the completion status of planned irrigation, collect data on the water pressure in the supply line, adjust the type of crop, and much more. It has also become possible to receive notifications by mail or phone whenever the machine starts and finishes working, or whenever there is an accident. Remote control allows for adjusting the equipment's key parameters (speed, sectors for irrigation, schedule).
Results
- Service costs were reduced by 15%
- The new functionality will allow the plant to increase sales. The ex-pected growth is at least 30%
- Thanks to remote diagnostics, the speed and quality of service has increased