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　　翻译 | 栏目二第三组

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　　编辑 | 毛毛

　　Precision agriculture

　　精准农业

　　TV dinners

　　变废为宝

　　Unused TV spectrum and drones could help make smart farms a reality

　　被弃用的电视广播无线电和无人机使智能农场成为现实

　　Sep 17th 2016 | CARNATION, WASHINGTON | From the print edition

　　2016年9月17日|华盛顿州 华盛顿 | 印刷版

　　精准农业(Precision Agriculture )是当今世界农业发展的新潮流，是由信息技术支持的根据空间变异、定位、定时、定量地实施一整套现代化农事操作技术与管理的系统。其基本涵义是根据作物生长的土壤性状，调节对作物的投入，即一方面查清田块内部的土壤性状与生产力空间变异，另一方面确定农作物的生产目标，进行定位的“系统诊断、优化配方、技术组装、科学管理”，调动土壤生产力，以最少的或最节省的投入达到同等收入或更高的收入，并改善环境，高效地利用各类农业资源，取得经济效益和环境效益。

　　精准农业由十个系统组成，即全球定位系统(GPS)、农田信息采集系统、农田遥感监测系统(RS)、农田地理信息系统(GIS)、农业专家系统、智能化农机具系统、环境监测系统、系统集成、网络化管理系统和培训系统。

　　ON THE Dancing Crow farm in Washington, sunflowers and squashes soak up the rich autumn sunshine beside a row of solar panels. This bucolic smallholdingprovides organic vegetables to the farmers' markets of Seattle. But it is also home to an experiment by Microsoft, a big computing firm, that it hopes will transform agriculture further afield. For the past year, the firm's engineers have been developing a suite of technologies there to slash the cost of "precision agriculture", which aims to use sensors and clever algorithms to deliver water, fertilisers and pesticides only to crops that actually need them.

　　在华盛顿的Dancing Crow 农场里，一排太阳能电池板旁，向日葵和南瓜尽情地沐浴在秋日灿烂的阳光下。这个田园农场为西雅图的农贸市场提供有机蔬菜。它其实也是微软（一家大型计算机公司）的实验基地。微软希望这些实验能推动农场变革。在过去的一年里，工程师已经开发出一套技术手段来消减“精准农业”（利用传感器和智能运算法则技术只给有需要的农作物浇水、施肥、喷洒杀虫剂）的成本。

　　Squash科学土壤保湿策略对果蔬产量的影响：南瓜小果（主要种类为笋瓜 winter squash 和西葫芦 summer squash）

　　bucolic adj.牧民生活的，田园风味的，乡村风味的；

　　smallholdingn.小农场

　　algorithm n. 运算法则；计算程序;

　　Precision agriculture is one of the technologies that could help to feed a world whose population is forecast to hit almost 10 billion by 2050. If farmers can irrigate only when necessary, and avoid excessive pesticide use, they should be able to save money and boost their output.

　　世界人口预计在2050年达到100亿，精准农业是用于给全世界人口提供粮食的技术之一。如果农民可以只对缺水的作物浇水，并且只对有虫的作物喷洒杀虫剂，那么这些技术将会节省成本并提高农作物产量。

　　But existing systems work out at $1,000 a sensor. That is too pricey for most rich-world farmers, let alone those in poor countries where productivity gains are most needed. The sensors themselves, which probe things like moisture, temperature and acidity in the soil, and which are scattered all over the farm, are fairly cheap, and can be powered with inexpensive solar panels. The cost comes in getting data from sensor to farmer. Few rural farms enjoy perfect mobile-phone coverage, and Wi-Fi networks do not have the range to cover entire fields. So most precision-agriculture systems rely on sensors that connect to custom cellular base stations, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars, or to satellites, which require pricey antennas and data plans.

　　但是现有的系统要靠一个1000美元的传感器运转。这对大部分发达国家的农民而言已经很贵了，更不用说那些急需提高产量的贫困国家的农民了。这些传感器分散在农场各个角落，用于探测土壤的湿度、温度、酸碱度。传感器本身很便宜，而且所用的电来自平价的太阳能板。钱主要用在把数据从传感器传给农场的这一过程中。很少有移动数据和WIFI可以覆盖整个农场，所以多数精准农业的系统依靠传感器连接定制而成的蜂窝基站（这会花费数万美元）或卫星（需要昂贵的天线和流量）。

　　Scatter 分散

　　Cellular network：蜂窝网络或移动网络是一种移动通信硬件架构，把移动电话的服务区分为一个个正六边形的小子区，每个小区设一个基站，形成了形状酷似“蜂窝”的结构，因而把这种移动通信方式称为蜂窝移动通信方式。

　　In contrast, the sensors at Dancing Crow employ unoccupied slices of the UHF and VHF radio frequencies used for TV broadcasts, slotting data between channels. Many countries are experimenting with this so-called "white space"; to unlock extra bandwidth for mobile phones. In cities, tiny slices of the white-space spectrum sell for millions of dollars. But in the sparsely populated countryside, says Ranveer Chandra, a Microsoft researcher, there is unlicensed space galore.

　　与普通传感器不同的是，Dancing Crow 农场的传感器使用了闲置的UHF和VHF无线电频率之间的频道来传输数据。许多国家都在研究这个所谓的“白色空间”，来给手机提供更多的宽带连接。微软的研究员Ranveer Chandra说到，在城市里，白色空间的一小部分可售价数百万美元，但是在人烟稀少的农村有大量，未被政府授权出去的“白色空间”。

　　Slot 把…放入狭长开口中

　　Bandwidth 宽带

　　Sparsely 稀疏地;稀少地;不足地;贫乏地

　　The farmer's house is connected to the internet in the usual way. A special white-space base station relays that signal to a shed elsewhere on the farm that sports an ordinary TV aerial. Individual sensors talk to the shed using TV transceivers with a range of more than 8km—enough for all but the biggest farms. And those transceivers are cheap: "We've already built sensors for less than $100," says Mr Chandra. "Our aim is to get them to under $15."

　　农户的房子照常连接网络，由一个特殊的白色空间基站继电器把数据传到农场随处可见的小棚屋。这些小棚屋都装有普通的电视天线威廉希尔WilliamHill官方网站。每个传感器可以通过无线电收发器与小棚屋进行数据传输，这样的收发器可以覆盖为8千米——只要不是很大的农场威廉希尔williamhill，基本都够用。Chandra说：“这些收发器是很廉价的，我们已经开发出了不到100美元的传感器，我们的目标是把成本控制在15美元以下。

　　Relay 转达

　　Transceiver n.无线电收发机，收发器

　　Microsoft is not the only organisation hoping to make agricultural sensors practical. Researchers at the University of Applied Sciences in Mannheim, for instance, have developed a sensor network that relies on a technology called software-defined radio, which uses computers to simulate an ultra-flexible, very sensitive radio receiver. And scientists at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are working on sensors that communicate with radio waves that propagate through the soil rather than the air, and which draw their power from the vibrations generated by farm vehicles moving about on the surface.

　　致力于农业传感器实用意义研发的并不是只有微软一家。德国曼海姆大学应用科学院的研究员们，已经研发出了一种基于软件无线电技术的传感器网络。它利用电脑模拟异常灵活、敏感的无线电接收器的运作。内布拉斯加大学林肯分校的科学家们正在研究一种以无线电波传导的传感器，它通过土壤而不是空气传播，并从在地面上移动的农场车辆产生的振动中获得能量。

　　Propagate through 传播

　　But although such sensor data are useful, but they cannot tell you everything. To fill in the gaps, Dancing Crow uses a drone. These are getting cheaper (a basic model costs $1,000) but they require some skill to fly, and their small batteries mean limited flight times. So Microsoft's team wrote an autopilot that lets a farmer outline a plot to survey, works out the most efficient route and sends the drone on its way, reducing the time taken to cover a farm by over 25%.（读者试译）

　　虽然通过传感器获得的数据很有用，但是数据并不完整。Dancing Crow利用了无人机来填补这个缺口。虽然无人机的价格越来越便宜（一个基本型大概1000美元），但是操控起来需要技巧，电池容量小，飞行时间短。 读者试译句，快来把科学土壤保湿策略对果蔬产量的影响你们的翻译或理解留言在文章下方吧。第二天会有解析哟。

　　Drone无人机

　　The resulting imagery contains useful information on growing conditions, crop health and insect pests, but interpreting it properly is beyond most farmers. So Microsoft also developed software that runs on an ordinary laptop, and can stitch together individual pictures into a single panoramic view of the entire farm. Sensor data can be laid atop this view, and the computer can then extrapolate a handful of sensor readings into predicted values for moisture, acidity and so on at any given point.

　　无人机传来的图像包括作物生长条件、健康状况、虫害等有用信息。但是它不能像大多数农民那样恰当的解释这些现象。所以微软也开发了一款可以在普通笔记本上运行的软件，以便把单独的图像整合成整个农场的全景。传感器带来的数据可以显示在全景图上威廉希尔，电脑可以在任何一个给定的点上推算出传感器上的一些预测读数，包括湿度、酸度等。

　　Stitch缝补

　　Panoramic 全景的

　　Extrapolate （由已知资料对未知事实或价值）推算，推断；

　　When the nearby Snoqualmie River rises up to flood Dancing Crow farm in a couple of months, as it does most winters, Mr Chandra plans to take his technologies to India. For the very poorest farmers, even a cheap drone will be beyond their budget. He wants to see if a lower-tech solution will work just as well—simply attaching a smartphone to a $5 helium balloon and walking it through the fields.

　　大多数的冬天，附近的斯诺夸尔米河河水都会上涨，会淹没Dancing Crow 农场好几个月。所以Chandra计划把这套技术迁往印度。对于最贫穷的农民来说，即使是一个廉价的无人机他们也买起。他想看看一个低技术含量的解决方案是能否一样奏效——把智能手机绑在一个5美元的氢气球上并拿着它穿越农场。

　　Correction: An early version of this article misspelled Mr Chandra's name. We apologise for the error.

　　更正：本文此前的版本中，chandra先生名字的拼写出现错误。我们为此道歉。

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　　So Microsoft's team wrote an autopilot that lets a farmer outline a plot to survey, works out the most efficient route and sends the drone on its way, reducing the time taken to cover a farm by over 25%.

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