Autoria: PESSOA, J. D. C.; BERTUCCI NETO, V.; RABELLO, L. M.; SOARES, S. S.

Resumo: Abstract— Despite Brazil being the fifth country in the world in area and population, it is the largest in terms of cultivated land area, becoming a global player related to food production and exportation in the last decades. At the same time, food production increases year by year as do infrastructure problems. One of the crucial problems is related to grain storage. The availability of grain storage now is lower than the total of grain produced, leading producers to promptly sell production that could not be stored. Some companies sell to farmers solutions like silo bags, or plastic bags, as a fast way to overcome this kind of problem. Grains stored in silos are susceptible to insect infestation and fungal growth, depending on initial conditions and storage conditions, which can lead to the loss of part or even the entire stock. The statistics are unclear or do not exist, but it is estimated that technology can reduce losses from 40-50% to 1-2%. This project proposes monitoring post-harvest variables to detect or even forecast potential risks to the quality of the stored product. This solution requires data transmission in areas that lack cellular network coverage. To overcome this limitation and offer a robust solution, the team chose to use a satellite to communicate between two ground stations: one that sends the measured data and the other close to the data center to receive and process the data. This demand was embraced by the company CRIAR Space Systems which is, together with Embrapa, working on solutions such as installing silo bags, monitoring physical and chemical variables in those silos to automatically produce alert signals. These signals can indicate the presence of contamination in the silos due to local fermentation, or due to the presence of high/low bulk moisture and temperature, for instance. Another CRIAR feature is the development of communication antennas for satellite signals with the purpose of further launching a private satellite dedicated to monitoring all farms covered by this service. The scope of this work in progress is to show how this is being planned and applied.

Ano de publicação: 2024

Tipo de publicação: Anais e Proceedings de eventos (considerados no todo)

Unidade: Embrapa Instrumentação

Palavras-chave: Antenna, Grain, Soy