.KEYWORD grain
.FLYINGHEAD PALM IN THE REAL WORLD
.TITLE Agribusiness in the Palm of your hand
.OTHER
.SUMMARY Given their form factor, ease of use, long battery life, and solid reliability, Palm devices are becoming more and more popular in agribusiness, construction, and manufacturing environments. Tom Gettings, an engineer with The GSI Group, Inc., offers this real world example of how the power of Palm computing is being used to remotely program flash chips on a series of agricultural crop dryers.
.AUTHOR Tom Gettings
As readers of PalmPower Enterprise Edition well know, much of the widespread success of Palm OS-based handheld computers has been due to their reliability, ease of use, and superior form factor. These same factors are resulting in enterprise adoption of Palm OS-based devices for a variety of special tasks and applications.
One such special task, managing flash chips on agricultural crop dryers, is described in this article. Even if you’re not an "aggie," this article should be of interest to anyone wondering how Palm devices can help maintain factory equipment or be used for field service. Besides, there are some pictures of some very cool machines further on in the article.
.H1 GSI grain dryers
One company that’s adopting Palm devices for a somewhat non-traditional use is my company, The GSI Group, Inc. at http://www.grainsystems.com. The grain division of the GSI Group manufactures a wide variety of agricultural equipment for grain storage, drying, and material handling. We produce a series of agricultural crop dryers like the one shown in Figure A.
.FIGPAIR A Here’s a GSI grain dryer.
These dryers may be installed in one place permanently or moved from site to site. They come in a large variety of configurations and sizes and have a number of components that must be controlled using a microprocessor control board. This control board manages fans for airflow, gas heaters, and loading and unloading equipment. The dryers are shipped from the factory with a program that allows the operators to adjust factors such as the crop being dried, the input and desired output moisture level of the crop, and the ambient environment conditions. One dryer’s control panel is pictured in Figure B.
.FIGPAIR B Here’s a GSI grain dryer control panel.
The flash chip containing the control program is installed on the control board at the GSI factory. Several hundred such units are manufactured and shipped annually.
The control boards are then placed inside dryers that are shipped to all parts of the world and are used for a variety of crops and in a wide range of climatic conditions. As the dealers that sell, install, and service the units request special options, they’re then incorporated into the overall dryer control program so that all future dryers have the new options and capabilities. It seems that the idea of "upgrades" is universal, even in agriculture.
It’s often desirable to update the dryers already in the field. With new models, the need to update also comes from errors or "bugs" in the initial program. It’s the job of GSI servicemen, independent GSI dealers, and the GSI dryer field sales force to update the dryers.
And that, finally, is where our favorite friend, the ubiquitous Palm device, comes in very handy.
.H1 Updating the flash chip
For us, field updating was a continual problem due to the type of flash chip utilized. In the past, updating was done in two ways.
The first method was to physically replace the flash chip. This was unsatisfactory because of the expense of purchasing and shipping the new chip. Problems could also be encountered if the chips arrived at the far-flung sites in a less than serviceable condition. Physical replacement was also cumbersome since we use the same flash chip with a different program for other drying products. Problems would naturally occur if an incorrect chip were mistakenly sent.
The second method was the use of a specialized flash chip programming device (a piece of hardware) to reprogram the chip on site (via an RS-232C serial interface provided for this purpose). This was also pretty unsatisfactory since the flash programming device was somewhat expensive (approximately $200.00), had no other use, and required the use of an archaic DOS program to reprogram the chip.
A more practical solution was needed. An engineering team consisting of Jeff Falconer, John Frankovich, and Steve Logue was formed to address the problem. Laptop computers were an obvious, yet inappropriate solution due to the expense involved and the high level of loss (i.e., theft, breakage, etc) that could be expected.
.CALLOUT The primary reason the team chose the Palm device is the Palm device’s superior ease of use and solid reliability.
Instead, the team decided an inexpensive handheld device that could be used to reprogram the flash chip at the dryer site would be an ideal solution. The two devices considered were the Palm computer and Microsoft’s Pocket PC. At that time the company itself had not purchased any handheld devices, however Palm OS devices individually purchased by "early adopters" in the engineering staff members were already quite popular (see "Selling on enterprise time" elsewhere in this issue for more on grassroots adoption). There were also some privately-purchased Pocket PC devices available. As a result, in-house knowledge and background was available on both operating systems.
.H1 Choosing the right device
The team quickly arrived at the Palm OS-based devices as the best option for this project. The primary reason the team chose the Palm device is the Palm device’s superior ease of use and solid reliability. This was of primary importance considering the diverse user base. Other factors were the ease of development for the device, the widespread acceptance and availability of Palm OS devices, and the low device cost. Another factor that went into choosing Palm devices over Handspring or other devices was the serial connection, which was considered most compatible with the existing electronics and hardware.
.CALLOUT Another factor was the serial connection, which was most compatible with the existing electronics and hardware.
.H1 Developing the Palm application
The project had two primary components. The first was to develop a Palm application to install the updated control program to the flash chip. The second component was to develop an interface on the Palm device to allow the monitoring of the dryer performance during operation and to store the information on the Palm device for synchronization at a central computer later. This second was an additional benefit to using the Palm computer over any of the other methods considered.
Such monitoring is commonly done at a central computer for a "networked" dryer or series of dryers, however the project team thought it would be valuable for servicemen and others to be able to monitor performance directly at the dryer. It would also be a useful feature to permit gathering of the performance information from dryers that cannot be connected to a network interface. They decided that, initially, the monitoring would be done via a cable interface. However, the team planned to enhance the design with an IR interface using an LED mounted on the external face of the dryer control panel.
The flash chip programmer portion of the project is now complete and is being used to program the dryers on the production line at the GSI dryer assembly plant, as seen in Figure C.
.FIGPAIR C Here, the control program is being loaded onto the dryer.
It’s also being used by the GSI field service organization and is in the process of being distributed to the GSI dryer sales force. It’s anticipated the program will be available to the GSI dealer network in March. Right now, the monitoring program is in limited use by the service organization.
The development team still has some enhancements planned for this portion of the project and anticipates wider distribution of the monitoring, or "Watchdog" program, as it’s called, probably by the time you’re reading this article.
.H1 Inside the Palm application
The opening screen of the GSI Flash Programmer can be seen in Figure D. It’s fun seeing our logo in blazing color on a Palm IIIc!
.FIG D This is the opening screen of GSI’s Palm application as seen on a Palm IIIc.
In Figure E, you can see the program selection screen. This list contains a database of programs that can be downloaded into the dryer’s control processor.
.FIG E Here is the program selection screen.
In Figure F, the program is downloading to the control board.
.FIG F Here, the program is downloading to the control board.
The GSI Flash Programmer is designed to operate with any Palm OS-based device (color or grayscale) using Palm OS 3.5. The size of the program is 42K, therefore device memory isn’t a significant issue. The program can also be beamed between devices.
Of course, one other enhancement was necessary. As you might imagine, grain dryers don’t often come from the factory with a HotSync connector. So it was necessary for us to develop a small board level interface plug, pictured in Figure G, to permit the board to interface with the Palm device.
.FIGPAIR G Here is the connection to the flash chip/control board.
This plug was necessary due to legacy interface issues with the GSI control board hardware and will be manufactured by GSI and sold to the dealer network at nominal costs. All-in-all, it’s pretty cool that a simple interface can connect a Palm device directly into something as specialized as a grain dryer control board.
.H1 Advantages of the Palm platform
So now that you know what our project does and how it works, let’s look at some of the advantages of the Palm platform.
The flash chip programming software was developed in approximately one month and required the development of a custom conduit for loading the binary files into the dryer. I discussed the development of the program and conduit with Steve Logue, the primary developer, in order to gather insight into what he found to be the strengths and weaknesses of the Palm platform for this application.
.CALLOUT It was very straightforward to develop a program for the Palm computer.
This was Steve’s first project with the Palm OS, and he considered the greatest advantage to be that it was very straightforward to develop a program for the Palm computer. He was also very impressed with the ease and reliability of the synchronization and program installation, as well as with the consistent behavior in the various types of devices on which the program has been installed (Palm IIIc, Palm m100, etc.). He found the most challenging part to be the development of the conduit. This was primarily due to a lack of examples and available information on the subject.
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I also discussed with the development team the overall benefits that have been derived from this project. Of course, the primary advantage was the elimination of the difficulties posed by the previous update methods discussed earlier. Another advantage is that the control programs for other drying products with similar control boards can all be installed on the one Palm device and are available to service personnel wherever they journey in the world. It’s global. Finally, the most obvious advantage is that the Palm devices may be used for a wide variety of other applications, so while we get a field service solution, we also can gain benefits in other areas, possibly including sales force automation.
I expect to see the continued adaptation of handheld computers for vertical applications in modern agribusiness, construction, and manufacturing environments. These types of devices can fill niche needs for which a laptop is too cumbersome. Handheld computing remains a very dynamic, competitive, and interesting area. Given a Palm device’s strengths in form factor, ease of use, long battery life, and solid reliability, I believe we can expect to see more of them in the gritty environments these industries operate in and in far-flung regions of the world.
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.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on The GSI Group, Inc., visit http://www.grainsystems.com.
For more information about Palm computers, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
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.BIO Tom Gettings is an engineer with The GSI Group, Inc. at http://www.grainsystems.com. He can be reached at tgettings@mail.
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@@.ee6f131
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