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Agriculture

NextCC provides reliable integration of PWM based agricultural flow meters. It can read the pump signals, process them and forward the flow rate and amount of fluid consumed to LaunchPad. Currently, the agricultural setup is only supported on Ardupilot systems.

Setup​

Complete the NextCC Hardware Setup before starting the agriculture setup.

The simplified schematics of the connections is given below.

Connection Overview

Pump Integration with Pixhawk​

Follow the Ardupilot Crop Sprayer documentation to integrate the pump with the Pixhawk.

Flow Meter Integration with NextCC​

A flow meter has three pins, i.e., VCC, GND and signal.

  • Use the VCC and the GND pins to power the flow meter. Do not use the NextCC to power the flow meter.
  • Connect the signal pin of the flow meter to the P5 (SPI0) port of the NextCC. The signal pin goes to the pin marked as ICE on the port. In the pin out diagram, it is mentioned as the GPIO8 pin.
  • This is the same port to which the tamper proof module is connected, so you can simply put the signal wire to the tamper proof module connector. Alternatively, you can create a new connector.

Next CC

Port

Pin Out

Software Configuration​

Follow the NextCC Software Setup to access the NextCC Dashboard. Go to the Agriculture section.

  • Click the switch to enable the flow meter reading.
  • Set the Servo Value to the servo pin of your pump.
  • Set the Min PWM to the minimum pump servo output.
  • Set the Max PWM to the maximum pump servo output.
  • Click the Update button to save the settings.
  • Restart the drone.

Dashboard

Calibration​

Refer the Flow Meter Calibration section in the LaunchPad Drone Settings for instruction on how to calibrate the flow meter.

Spray Mission​

Refer the Spray Single Grid Mission page for instructions on how to plan automated spray missions with LaunchPad.