Bücher von Qin Zhang

Digital agriculture is an emerging concept of modern farming that refers to managing farms using modern Engineering, Information and Communication Technologies (EICT) aiming at increasing the overall efficiency of agricultural production, improving the quantity and quality of products, and optimizing the human labor required and natural resource consumption in operations. This encyclopedia is designed to collect the summaries of knowledge on as many as subjects or aspects relevant to ECIT for digital agriculture, present such knowledge in entries, and arrange them alphabetically by articles titles.Springer Major Reference Works platform offers Live Update capability. Our reference work takes full advantage of this feature, which allows for continuous improvement or revision of published content electronically.The Editorial BoardDr. Irwin R. Donis-Gonzalez, University of California Davis, Dept. Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Davis, USA (Section:Postharvest Technologies)Prof. Paul Heinemann, Pennsylvania State University, Department Head of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, PA, USA (Section: Technologies for Crop Production)Prof. Manoj Karkee, Washington State University, Center for Precision and Automated Agricultural Systems, Washington, USA (Section: Robotics and Automation Technologies)Prof. Minzan Li, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China (Section: Precision Agricultural Technologies)Prof. Dikai Liu, University of Technology Sydney (UTS),Faculty of Engineering & Information Technologies, Broadway NSW, Australia (Section: AI, Information and Communication Technologies)Prof. Tomas Norton, University of Leuven, Dept. of Biosystems, Heverlee Leuven, Belgium (Section: Technologies for Animal and Aquatic Production)Dr. Manuela Zude-Sasse, Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB),Precision Horticulture, Potsdam, Germany (Section: Engineering and Mechanization Technologies)

Modern tree fruit orchards and vineyards constitute complex production systems that are exposed to highly dynamic and stochastic natural, financial and societal forces, and face demands for increased production using fewer resources, with reduced environmental impact. Successful operation of orchards and vineyards under these conditions is practically impossible without careful and extensive use of state-of-the-art automation technologies and careful planning of future operations (e.g., training systems when replanting) that can be enabled by knowledge of emerging technologies and future trends. Also, improvement of existing automation technologies and development of novel future systems cannot be accomplished without a working understanding of the tree and vine biological production systems, their management needs, and the capabilities and limitations of existing automation systems. The book aims to provide the necessary knowledge to achieve the above goals in a way that can engage readers without engineering or horticultural backgrounds.

Rapid developments in electronics over the past two decades have induced a move from purely mechanical vehicles to mechatronics design. This book introduces this concept, and provides an overview of recent applications and future approaches within this field.