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Real-time mobile phone application to support land policy
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 85 (2012) 109–111
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compag
Application note
Real-time mobile phone application to support land policy Francisco Javier Mesas-Carrascosa ⇑, Isabel Luisa Castillejo-González, Manuel Sánchez de la Orden, Alfonso García-Ferrer Department of Graphic and Geomatics Engineering, University of Cordoba, Campus de Rabanales, 14071 Cordoba, Spain
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 21 October 2011 Received in revised form 9 April 2012 Accepted 15 April 2012
Keywords: Android Accelerometer Digital camera GPS Mobile computing Smartphone
a b s t r a c t Agricultural subsidies can only be effectively allocated if there is a suitable information system both at the level of subsidy providers – the government – and recipients – agricultural organizations. Governments have to set up complex schemes to control subsidies using techniques such as remote sensing or photogrammetry. If these techniques do not help, technical staff has to visit the plots. This paper explains the development and implementation of a mobile application to make fieldwork easier. The application uses a number of devices in a Smartphone such as a GPS or a camera to collect information and broadcast it to an office in real time. This application, called GeoFoto, computers was tested in real scenarios in the Spanish region of Andalusia. This provided information about its advantages and disadvantages, and the final results are highly encouraging. Ó 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Smartphones are the product of the convergence between regular mobile phones and PDAs (Chang et al., 2009). Our working lives have been changed by the increasing use of these devices, whose small size and low weight provide convenience and portability. From a social point of view, mobile communication has an unquestionable relevance. It has also created new forms of business (Fuentesalz et al., 2008). In recent years, the interest of the scientific community in such communication has increased. According to the literature, mobile applications are used successfully in the areas of health care (Dala-Ali et al., 2011), traffic monitoring (Chen et al., 2011; Monares et al., 2011), tourism (Ahas et al., 2008), education (Chang et al., 2011; Ruchter et al., 2010). Mobile services in the agricultural sector are a fact today. Rafoss et al. (2010) developed an application to track down disease outbreaks in plants using GPS devices in mobile phones. Cunha et al. (2010) collected information such as climate data that can be applied to production management. Smartphones make it possible to work with real-time data; this is an important factor in decision support systems (Antonopoulou et al., 2010; Zheng et al., 2011) and in documentation and traceability systems to track products or product properties (Sallabi et al., 2011). The studies mentioned
⇑ Corresponding author. Address: Department of Graphic and Geomatics Engineering, University of Cordoba, Campus de Rabanales, Edificio Gregor Mendel, 2ª planta, 14071 Cordoba, Spain. Tel./fax: +34 957 218 537. E-mail address: [email protected] (F.J. Mesas-Carrascosa). 0168-1699/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2012.04.003
show how different sectors can benefit from mobile services in different ways, given their diversity of needs and conditions. The major objective of the present research was to develop and implement an application using the GPS, camera, accelerometer and WiFi/GPRS devices of Smartphones so that technical staff can use it as a tool in fieldwork when inspecting agricultural plots. This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the materials used; Section 3 shows the results and Section 4 includes the final concluding remarks.
2. Materials The software packages used for developing the final application were the following: (a) Android Software Development Kit, (b) Android Development Tools (ADT) and (c) Eclipse used as an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) to develop the application in Java. The application for mobile phones was developed using GPS, camera and accelerometer devices and WiFi/GPRS connection. The proposed solution was designed to be flexible and highly available and tested on mobile phones running the Android 2.3.4 operating system. It is flexible, as it is possible to implement new functions. The solution is divided into two layers: a user interface and a business layer. The user interface provides an easy and friendly space where the interaction between users and the application occurs and provides access to the system. The business layer includes functional modules and business logic and includes the necessary modules to access devices such as a GPS or a camera.
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F.J. Mesas-Carrascosa et al. / Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 85 (2012) 109–111
3. Results 3.1. Operation of the application The product developed was called GeoFoto. A GeoFoto session begins by starting the program from the application menu (Fig. 1a). The first step is to select the main menu or the settings menu (Fig. 1b). In the settings menu (Fig. 1c), user can select between storing coordinates in geodesic or UTM projection mode, time interval between epochs and the number of epochs. If the user is working indoors, inside a building, for example, he/she should select ‘‘working without connection’’. In this case, the photograph will be taken without GPS information. Finally, the user can decide how the information is stored. Data can be sent by e-mail or stored in an SD card. When the user starts to take photographs, a new window appears, showing the image recorded by the camera in full screen (Fig. 1d). Four buttons are shown at the bottom of the screen. The first one on the left shows or conceals the coordinates
on the screen. The second button is the compass and shows the orientation of the Smartphone. The right button shows a new screen where the user can enter additional data (Fig. 1e). This information is later printed on the image and included in a text file and in an e-mail. The camera button is used to take photographs. This button is only enabled once the GPS coordinates have been obtained. If the user selects the settings menu to work indoors, this button is enabled immediately. Each camera shot generates two files; an image and a text file. Files are named using the concatenation of date and time values. The e-mail subject is also generated using this rule, which prevents any confusion when managing the data. All the recorded data are processed and automatically e-mailed in real time to the office or laboratory, where the information is received and analyzed. This makes it possible to verify that the user has visited the correct plot or that the number of samples collected is enough. Thus, if something goes wrong the problem can be corrected in real time.
Fig. 1. GeoFoto screenshots: (a) access to the application, (b) initial screen accessed by the user (c) settings menu, (d) main menu and (e) digital blackboard.
F.J. Mesas-Carrascosa et al. / Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 85 (2012) 109–111
111
many sensors into Smartphones. Such sensors can be internal or external. Internal sensors are used in GPS, accelerometers and cameras and can provide associated services. For example, GPS sensors provide coordinates that are used in location services. Several internal sensors can be combined to offer new services, such as georeferenced images taken by a Smartphone. Smartphones have communication ports such as USB ports, for example. This increases the potential of these devices, broadening the possibility of developing new applications. Sensors such as thermometers, carbon dioxide meters and others can be connected to a Smartphone. The role played by Smartphones in this context is to facilitate information transmission. Acknowledgements This research was financially supported by the Andalusian Regional Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (Consejería de Agricultura y Pesca, Junta de Andalucía). References
Fig. 2. Comparison between materials developed using (a) conventional methodology and (b) mobile methodology.
3.2. Practical experiences The application was used to support technical staff in land plot identification. These tasks focus on monitoring European Union agricultural subsidies. The technical staff has to manage various devices such as a GPS, camera, mobile or blackboard to record data such as the plot code, photograph identification or date (Fig. 2a). GeoFoto reduces the number of devices needed and also manages the information (Fig. 2b). Compared to other methods, fieldwork was made easier because all the information was integrated into one single tool. Feedback from the users was very positive. Sometimes the staff had problems due to poor mobile network coverage. Today, this problem often affects many applications when work is performed in rural areas. Rafoss et al. (2010) had the same problem testing their research. In such situations, GeoFoto stores the information in a SD card so that it can be downloaded later. 4. Discussion The technological progress made in telecommunications and mobile devices suggests that new research and applications that are presently unthinkable will be available in the future. There are a wealth of possibilities to build new applications integrating
Ahas, R., Aasa, A., Roose, A., Mark, Ü., Silm, S., 2008. Evaluating passive mobile positioning data for tourism surveys: an Estonian case study. Tourism management 29, 469–486. Antonopoulou, E., Karetsos, S.T., Maliappis, M., Sideridis, A.B., 2010. Web and mobile technologies in a prototype DSS for major field crops. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 70, 292–301. Chang, Y.F., Chen, C.S., Zhou, H., 2009. Smartphone for mobile commerce. Computer standards and interfaces 31, 740–747. Chang, C.-S., Chen, T.-S., Hsu, W.-H., 2011. The study on integrating WebQuest with mobile learning for environmental education. Computers and education 57, 1228–1239. Chen, M.C., Chen, J.L., Chang, T.W., 2011. Android/OSGI-based vehicular network management system. Computer Communications 34, 169–183. Cunha, C., Peres, E., Morais, R., Oliveira, A., Matos, S., Fernandes, M., Ferreira, P., Reis, M., 2010. The use of mobile devices with multi-tag technologies for an overall contextualized vineyard management. Computers and Electronic in Agriculture 73, 154–164. Dala-Ali, B., Lloyd, M.A., Al-Abed, Y., 2011. The uses of the iPhone for surgeons. The surgeon 9, 44–48. Fuentesalz, L., Maícas, J.P., Polo, Y., 2008. The evolution of mobile communications in Europe: the transition from the second to the third generation. Telecommunications Policy 32, 436–449. Monares, A., Ochoa, S.F., Pino, J.A., Herskovic, V., Rodriguez-Covili, J., Neyem, A., 2011. Mobile computing in urban emergency situations: improving the support to firefighters in the field. Expert systems with applications 38, 1255–1267. Rafoss, T., Saelid, K., Sletten, A., Gyland, L.F., Engravslia, L., 2010. Open geospatial technology standards and their potential Web Feature Service Transactions support the fighting of fire blight in Norway. Computers and Electronic in Agriculture 74, 336–340. Ruchter, M., Klar, B., Geiger, W., 2010. Comparing the effects of mobile computers and traditional approaches in environmental education. Computer and Education 54, 1054–1067. Sallabi, F., Fadel, M., Hussein, A., Jaffar, A., El Khatib, H., 2011. Design and implementation of an electronic mobile poultry production documentation system. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 76, 28–37. Zheng, L., Li, M., Wu, C., Ye, H., Ji, R., Deng, X., Che, Y., Fu, C., Guo, W., 2011. Development of a smart mobile farming service system. Mathematical and computer modelling 54, 1194–1203.
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compag
Application note
Real-time mobile phone application to support land policy Francisco Javier Mesas-Carrascosa ⇑, Isabel Luisa Castillejo-González, Manuel Sánchez de la Orden, Alfonso García-Ferrer Department of Graphic and Geomatics Engineering, University of Cordoba, Campus de Rabanales, 14071 Cordoba, Spain
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 21 October 2011 Received in revised form 9 April 2012 Accepted 15 April 2012
Keywords: Android Accelerometer Digital camera GPS Mobile computing Smartphone
a b s t r a c t Agricultural subsidies can only be effectively allocated if there is a suitable information system both at the level of subsidy providers – the government – and recipients – agricultural organizations. Governments have to set up complex schemes to control subsidies using techniques such as remote sensing or photogrammetry. If these techniques do not help, technical staff has to visit the plots. This paper explains the development and implementation of a mobile application to make fieldwork easier. The application uses a number of devices in a Smartphone such as a GPS or a camera to collect information and broadcast it to an office in real time. This application, called GeoFoto, computers was tested in real scenarios in the Spanish region of Andalusia. This provided information about its advantages and disadvantages, and the final results are highly encouraging. Ó 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Smartphones are the product of the convergence between regular mobile phones and PDAs (Chang et al., 2009). Our working lives have been changed by the increasing use of these devices, whose small size and low weight provide convenience and portability. From a social point of view, mobile communication has an unquestionable relevance. It has also created new forms of business (Fuentesalz et al., 2008). In recent years, the interest of the scientific community in such communication has increased. According to the literature, mobile applications are used successfully in the areas of health care (Dala-Ali et al., 2011), traffic monitoring (Chen et al., 2011; Monares et al., 2011), tourism (Ahas et al., 2008), education (Chang et al., 2011; Ruchter et al., 2010). Mobile services in the agricultural sector are a fact today. Rafoss et al. (2010) developed an application to track down disease outbreaks in plants using GPS devices in mobile phones. Cunha et al. (2010) collected information such as climate data that can be applied to production management. Smartphones make it possible to work with real-time data; this is an important factor in decision support systems (Antonopoulou et al., 2010; Zheng et al., 2011) and in documentation and traceability systems to track products or product properties (Sallabi et al., 2011). The studies mentioned
⇑ Corresponding author. Address: Department of Graphic and Geomatics Engineering, University of Cordoba, Campus de Rabanales, Edificio Gregor Mendel, 2ª planta, 14071 Cordoba, Spain. Tel./fax: +34 957 218 537. E-mail address: [email protected] (F.J. Mesas-Carrascosa). 0168-1699/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2012.04.003
show how different sectors can benefit from mobile services in different ways, given their diversity of needs and conditions. The major objective of the present research was to develop and implement an application using the GPS, camera, accelerometer and WiFi/GPRS devices of Smartphones so that technical staff can use it as a tool in fieldwork when inspecting agricultural plots. This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the materials used; Section 3 shows the results and Section 4 includes the final concluding remarks.
2. Materials The software packages used for developing the final application were the following: (a) Android Software Development Kit, (b) Android Development Tools (ADT) and (c) Eclipse used as an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) to develop the application in Java. The application for mobile phones was developed using GPS, camera and accelerometer devices and WiFi/GPRS connection. The proposed solution was designed to be flexible and highly available and tested on mobile phones running the Android 2.3.4 operating system. It is flexible, as it is possible to implement new functions. The solution is divided into two layers: a user interface and a business layer. The user interface provides an easy and friendly space where the interaction between users and the application occurs and provides access to the system. The business layer includes functional modules and business logic and includes the necessary modules to access devices such as a GPS or a camera.
110
F.J. Mesas-Carrascosa et al. / Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 85 (2012) 109–111
3. Results 3.1. Operation of the application The product developed was called GeoFoto. A GeoFoto session begins by starting the program from the application menu (Fig. 1a). The first step is to select the main menu or the settings menu (Fig. 1b). In the settings menu (Fig. 1c), user can select between storing coordinates in geodesic or UTM projection mode, time interval between epochs and the number of epochs. If the user is working indoors, inside a building, for example, he/she should select ‘‘working without connection’’. In this case, the photograph will be taken without GPS information. Finally, the user can decide how the information is stored. Data can be sent by e-mail or stored in an SD card. When the user starts to take photographs, a new window appears, showing the image recorded by the camera in full screen (Fig. 1d). Four buttons are shown at the bottom of the screen. The first one on the left shows or conceals the coordinates
on the screen. The second button is the compass and shows the orientation of the Smartphone. The right button shows a new screen where the user can enter additional data (Fig. 1e). This information is later printed on the image and included in a text file and in an e-mail. The camera button is used to take photographs. This button is only enabled once the GPS coordinates have been obtained. If the user selects the settings menu to work indoors, this button is enabled immediately. Each camera shot generates two files; an image and a text file. Files are named using the concatenation of date and time values. The e-mail subject is also generated using this rule, which prevents any confusion when managing the data. All the recorded data are processed and automatically e-mailed in real time to the office or laboratory, where the information is received and analyzed. This makes it possible to verify that the user has visited the correct plot or that the number of samples collected is enough. Thus, if something goes wrong the problem can be corrected in real time.
Fig. 1. GeoFoto screenshots: (a) access to the application, (b) initial screen accessed by the user (c) settings menu, (d) main menu and (e) digital blackboard.
F.J. Mesas-Carrascosa et al. / Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 85 (2012) 109–111
111
many sensors into Smartphones. Such sensors can be internal or external. Internal sensors are used in GPS, accelerometers and cameras and can provide associated services. For example, GPS sensors provide coordinates that are used in location services. Several internal sensors can be combined to offer new services, such as georeferenced images taken by a Smartphone. Smartphones have communication ports such as USB ports, for example. This increases the potential of these devices, broadening the possibility of developing new applications. Sensors such as thermometers, carbon dioxide meters and others can be connected to a Smartphone. The role played by Smartphones in this context is to facilitate information transmission. Acknowledgements This research was financially supported by the Andalusian Regional Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (Consejería de Agricultura y Pesca, Junta de Andalucía). References
Fig. 2. Comparison between materials developed using (a) conventional methodology and (b) mobile methodology.
3.2. Practical experiences The application was used to support technical staff in land plot identification. These tasks focus on monitoring European Union agricultural subsidies. The technical staff has to manage various devices such as a GPS, camera, mobile or blackboard to record data such as the plot code, photograph identification or date (Fig. 2a). GeoFoto reduces the number of devices needed and also manages the information (Fig. 2b). Compared to other methods, fieldwork was made easier because all the information was integrated into one single tool. Feedback from the users was very positive. Sometimes the staff had problems due to poor mobile network coverage. Today, this problem often affects many applications when work is performed in rural areas. Rafoss et al. (2010) had the same problem testing their research. In such situations, GeoFoto stores the information in a SD card so that it can be downloaded later. 4. Discussion The technological progress made in telecommunications and mobile devices suggests that new research and applications that are presently unthinkable will be available in the future. There are a wealth of possibilities to build new applications integrating
Ahas, R., Aasa, A., Roose, A., Mark, Ü., Silm, S., 2008. Evaluating passive mobile positioning data for tourism surveys: an Estonian case study. Tourism management 29, 469–486. Antonopoulou, E., Karetsos, S.T., Maliappis, M., Sideridis, A.B., 2010. Web and mobile technologies in a prototype DSS for major field crops. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 70, 292–301. Chang, Y.F., Chen, C.S., Zhou, H., 2009. Smartphone for mobile commerce. Computer standards and interfaces 31, 740–747. Chang, C.-S., Chen, T.-S., Hsu, W.-H., 2011. The study on integrating WebQuest with mobile learning for environmental education. Computers and education 57, 1228–1239. Chen, M.C., Chen, J.L., Chang, T.W., 2011. Android/OSGI-based vehicular network management system. Computer Communications 34, 169–183. Cunha, C., Peres, E., Morais, R., Oliveira, A., Matos, S., Fernandes, M., Ferreira, P., Reis, M., 2010. The use of mobile devices with multi-tag technologies for an overall contextualized vineyard management. Computers and Electronic in Agriculture 73, 154–164. Dala-Ali, B., Lloyd, M.A., Al-Abed, Y., 2011. The uses of the iPhone for surgeons. The surgeon 9, 44–48. Fuentesalz, L., Maícas, J.P., Polo, Y., 2008. The evolution of mobile communications in Europe: the transition from the second to the third generation. Telecommunications Policy 32, 436–449. Monares, A., Ochoa, S.F., Pino, J.A., Herskovic, V., Rodriguez-Covili, J., Neyem, A., 2011. Mobile computing in urban emergency situations: improving the support to firefighters in the field. Expert systems with applications 38, 1255–1267. Rafoss, T., Saelid, K., Sletten, A., Gyland, L.F., Engravslia, L., 2010. Open geospatial technology standards and their potential Web Feature Service Transactions support the fighting of fire blight in Norway. Computers and Electronic in Agriculture 74, 336–340. Ruchter, M., Klar, B., Geiger, W., 2010. Comparing the effects of mobile computers and traditional approaches in environmental education. Computer and Education 54, 1054–1067. Sallabi, F., Fadel, M., Hussein, A., Jaffar, A., El Khatib, H., 2011. Design and implementation of an electronic mobile poultry production documentation system. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 76, 28–37. Zheng, L., Li, M., Wu, C., Ye, H., Ji, R., Deng, X., Che, Y., Fu, C., Guo, W., 2011. Development of a smart mobile farming service system. Mathematical and computer modelling 54, 1194–1203.