How the system works
A weather station identifies climatic events. Configurable scenarios trigger LoRa or RF radio commands to management units at the ends of the rows. Folding and unfolding follow the defined safety rules.
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Case study · Agriculture
Automatic crop protection
Controlling retractable protection as weather conditions change.
STM32 Cortex-M4C / FreeRTOSLoRa / RFBLDCSTM32CubeIDE / Git
The context
A retractable system protects rows of fruit crops during rain and extreme weather. The end client developed and patented the mechanical structure; COVATECH maintained and implemented the electronics and developed the control unit software.
System architecture
From weather data to motor control.
COVATECH’s contribution
Practical engineering,
at every level of the project.
Autonomous control
Units powered by solar panels and lead-acid batteries. LoRa and/or RF communication with an RN2483 module. Control of a 750 W, 24 V, 3,000 rpm BLDC motor through an EM347B controller.
Real-time development
C firmware on STM32 Cortex-M4 with FreeRTOS. Development with STM32CubeIDE and Git source control. Task scheduling and timing constraints for motor control.
Electronics support and maintenance
Design reviews, repairs and improvements. Soldering and desoldering of SMD components, PCB track repairs and restoration of 16 boards from a batch of 20 faulty boards.
Diagnosis and reliability
Thermal camera hotspot detection, component sizing and heat dissipation analysis. Four-channel oscilloscope measurements and RS232, I2C and SPI bus analysis. Altium Designer used to diagnose internal layers.
Identified next steps
The original case study describes an upgrade towards the DRV8323 driver and pre-production stages to prepare. These are the project’s published future steps, rather than deliveries claimed in this presentation.
Development & diagnosis
The tools behind the engineering.
Work & feedback
What this work contributed.
Software development and participation in prototype implementation. The published case study describes operational installations in Aquitaine vineyards, with pre-production and industrialisation stages still identified.
Your next project
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