Aerospace software engineering perspectives for agricultural software development

The integration of agricultural research results into useful software-driven systems has potential to aid managers of agricultural resources, How to accomplish this integration while maintaining a high degree of user-oriented quality is not a simple task. This article discusses software engineering perspectives developed by the U.S. Department of Defense software industry that are used to analyze, design, and build complex software systems. This software engineering process was contrasted with the agricultural research process which currently guides agricultural software development. Problem analysis, solution conceptualization, process definition, and formal team building are four areas where agricultural research differs significantly from the aerospace approach. If activities associated with these concepts can be implemented within the agricultural research community, it will be possible to increase scale and complexity while maintaining the quality and timeliness of agricultural software.